ffiolumljia  JHuifarrsitg 

STUDIES  IN  COMPABATIVE  LITERATUBE 


IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH    FICTION 


•Ttg^y^o 


IRISH    LIFE    m   IRISH 
FICTIOI^ 


BY 


HORATIO  SHEAFE  KRANS 


OF  THE  \ 

i/NlVERS/TY 


'i' 


OF 

'FOR! 


THE   COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY,  Agents 
LONDON :  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Ltd. 

1903 

All  rights  reserved 


loi^fin 


Copyright,  1903, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up,  electrotyped,  and  published  September,  1903. 


Nortaooti  ^iJrtaa 

J.  S.  CuBhiiiK  .v  Co.  —  HLTwkk  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  iMnss.,  U.  S.  A. 


PREFACE 

No  attempt  has,  I  believe,  been  made  before 
to  bring  into  a  single  survey  the  Irish  novelists 
of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  and 
their  work.  This  book  aims  to  give  —  between 
a  few  introductory  remarks  upon  Irish  society 
and  a  literary  estimate  —  a  sketch  of  the  vista 
of  Irish  life  opened  by  the  novelists,  and,  in 
doing  this,  to  consider  their  novels  most  care- 
fully where  they  seem,  in  one  way  or  another, 
representative  of  national  life  and  character. 
The  value  of  the  fiction  of  the  period  before 
the  great  famine  is  on  the  whole  historical  in 
the  larger  sense ;  not  artistic.  It  takes  on 
significance  chiefly  as  a  remaking  of  Irish  life, 
which,  by  virtue  of  such  artistic  qualities  as  it 
possesses,  does  what  history  proper  can  hardly 
do,  —  creates  the  illusion  of  the  life  of  the  past. 
In  the  novels  may  be  seen  just  how  the  racial 
antipathies,  the  religious  antagonisms,  the  sleep- 
less consciousness  of  past  wrongs,  and,  in  short, 
all  the  discords  that  broke  harshly  upon  the 
everyday  intercourse  of  man  and  man,  found 
expression. 


vi  PREFACE 

I  am  glad  of  this  opportunity  of  thanking 
Mr.  William  Butler  Yeats  for  the  criticisms 
which  he  has  contributed  to  the  magazines  or 
prefixed  to  the  anthologies  he  has  edited.  They 
have  been  directly  helpful  to  me  because  of 
their  unfailing  sympathy,  their  knowledge,  and 
their  correct  perspective,  which  I  have  not 
found  combined  in  the  criticism  of  a  slightly 
earlier  day  upon  the  same  or  kindred  subjects. 
I  wish  also  to  thank  my  friend,  Mr.  Lewis 
Nathaniel  Chase,  for  his  kind  help.  Finally, 
I  must  express  my  indebtedness  to  Professor 
George  Edward  Woodberry  for  the  stimulus 
of  his  instruction  in  the  years  of  undergraduate 
and  graduate  work,  and  in  particular  for  the 
criticism  and  suggestion  that  have  been  inval- 
uable to  me  in  writing  this  book. 

The  bibliography  at  the  end  of  this  volume 
may  be  useful  to  any  who  wish  to  acquaint 
themselves  with  the  Irish  fiction  of  the  period 
here  considered.  Some  authors  and  a  number 
of  novels  that  did  not  seem  to  call  for  attention 
in  the  text  are  included  in  the  bibliography, 
together  with  a  list  of  biographical  and  other 
works  that  have  been  found  especially  hel2)ful. 

H.  S.  K. 

Columbia  Univkrsitt, 
September,  1903. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I 

PA6B 

Irish  Society 1 


CHAPTER  II 
The  Novelists  of  the  Gentry  ....       25 

CHAPTER  III 
The  Novelists  of  the  Peasantry    ....     120 

CHAPTER  IV 
Types  and  Typical  Incidents 197 

CHAPTER  V 
Literary  Estimate 270 

Bibliographical  Note 327 

Index 335 

vu 


lEISH  LIFE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 


CHAPTER   I\  ^^      or 


IRISH   SOCIETY 

Irish  society  as  it  was  between  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  Irish  Parliament  and  the  Union, 
1782-1800  — the  heart  of  the  period  in  which 
the  Irish  novelists  of  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  like  best  to  lay  the  scenes  of 
their  stories — was  everywhere  stamped  with 
the  impress  of  historical  events  and  political 
conditions  that  produced  distinctive  social  types 
and  a  most  curious  set  of  manners.  The  nation 
was  divided  into  two  great  classes,  one  chiefly 
a  Protestant  nobility  and  gentry  professing 
the  religion  of  the  Established  Church,  the 
other  chiefly  a  Catholic  peasantry.  Among  the 
nobility  and  gentry  there  was  a  scattering  of 
Catholic  families.     Though  the  great  body  of 


2  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

the  peasantry  was  Catholic,  there  was  in  the 
North  of  Ireland  a  large  population  of  Protes- 
tant, mainly  Presbyterian,  peasants.  The  mid- 
dle class  was  small  and  unimportant. 

The  Protestant  nobility  and  gentry  were  the 
monopolists  of  every  kind  of  power  and  privi- 
lege and  the  possessors  of  most  of  the  wealth 
of  the  country.  Many  of  them,  the  descendants 
of  the  English  conquerors,  still  looked  upon 
themselves  as  mere  settlers,  and  disclaimed  the 
name  of  Irishman.  They  were  not  Irish  in 
spirit,  and  prided  themselves  upon  their  English 
extraction.  Growing  up  under  the  conditions 
of  Ascendency,  they  of  course  bore  the  marks 
of  it  upon  them.  They  were  unique  both  in 
the  combination  of  qualities  included  in  their 
make-up  and  in  the  degree  to  which  certain  of 
these  qualities  were  developed.  They  had  the 
frankness  and  high  spirit  of  an  aristocracy,  but 
lacked  the  sense  of  responsibility  that  generally 
goes  with  power.  From  his  earliest  appearance 
in  history  the  Celtic  Irishman  was  preeminently 
hospitable  and  convivial  ;  and  the  Saxons 
caught  these  contagious  qualities  as  soon  as 
they  set  foot  upon  Irish  soil,  and  practised  them 
to  a  fault.\  These  gentry,  as   was   natural  to 


IRISH   SOCIETY  3 

men  in  whose  favor  the  laws  were  made  and 
against  whom  they  were  scarcely  operative, 
were  a  lawless  class,  overbearing,  unused  to 
contradiction  in  their  domains  at  home  and 
impatient  of  it  abroad.  Many  of  them,  new  to 
the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  landed  proprie- 
tors, which  were  most  trying  in  Ireland  even  to 
the  patient  and  experienced,  came  by  royal 
grant  suddenly  to  great  estates.  Sudden 
accession  to  great  possessions  could  not  fail  to 
stimulate  and  give  play  to  all  the  tendencies  to 
recklessness  and  extravagance  so  marked  in  the 
Irish  upper  classes.  As  masters,  though  often 
indulgent,  they  were  autocratic,  irresponsible, 
reckless,  and  violent,  ruling  their  estates  liter- 
ally as  despots,  binding  and  loosing  as  they 
chose.  Eminent  examples  of  the  type  just  de- 
scribed were  not  wanting.  A  personal  acquaint- 
ance with  a  distinguished  member  of  the  class 
—  Mr.  Beauchamp  Bagenal,  of  Dunleckny, 
County  Carlow  —  will  be  more  to  the  purpose 
than  an  enumeration  of  the  traits  of  the  gentry. 
Mr.  Bagenal  is  described  with  comic  gusto  in 
the  pages  of  Froude,  and  in  Mr.  Daunt's  Eighty- 
jive  Years  of  Irish  History.  Mr.  Daunt  will 
present  him  :  — 


4  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

"  Of  manners  elegant,  fascinating,  polished 
by  extensive  intercourse  with  the  great  world, 
of  princely  income,  and  of  boundless  hospitality, 
Mr.  Bagenal  possessed  all  the  qualities  and 
attributes  calculated  to  procure  him  popularity 
with  every  class.  A  terrestrial  paradise  was 
Dunleckny  for  all  lovers  of  good  wine,  good 
horses,  good  dogs,  and  good  society.  His  stud 
was  magnificent,  and  he  had  a  large  number  of 
capital  hunters  at  the  service  of  visitors  who 
were  not  provided  with  steeds  of  their  own. 
He  derived  great  delight  from  encouraging 
the  young  men  who  frequented  his  house  to 
hunt,  drink,  and  solve  points  of  honor  at  twelve 
paces. 

"Enthroned  at  Dunleckny, he  gathered  around 
him  a  host  of  spirits  congenial  to  his  own.  He 
had  a  tender  affection  for  pistols,  a  brace  of 
which  implements,  loaded,  were  often  placed 
before  him  on  the  dinner  table.  After  dinner 
the  claret  was  produced  in  an  unbroached  cask  ; 
Bagenal's  practice  was  to  broach  the  cask  with 
a  bullet  from  one  of  his  pistols,  whilst  he  kept 
the  other  pistol  m  terrorem  for  any  of  the  con- 
vives who  should  fail  in  doing  ample  justice  to 
the  Avine. 

"  Nothing  could  be  more  impressive  than  the 
bland,  fatherly,  affectionate  air  with  which  the 
old  gentleman  used  to  impart  to  his  junior 
guests  the  results  of  his  own  experience,  and 
the  moral  lessons  which  should  regulate  their 
conduct  through  life. 

"'In  truth,  my  young  friends,  it  behooves  a 


IRISH  SOCIETY  5 

youth  entering  the  world  to  make  a  character 
for  himself.  Respect  will  only  be  accorded  to 
character.  A  young  man  must  show  his  proofs. 
I  am  not  a  quarrelsome  person  —  I  never  was  — 
I  hate  your  mere  duellist ;  but  experience  of 
the  world  tells  me  there  are  knotty  points  of 
which  the  only  solution  is  the  saw  handle.  Rest 
upon  your  pistols,  my  boys  !  Occasions  will 
arise  in  which  the  use  of  them  is  absolutely 
indispensable  to  character.  A  man,  I  repeat, 
must  show  his  proofs — in  this  world  courage  will 
never  be  taken  upon  trust.  I  protest  to  Heaven, 
my  dear  young  friends,  I  am  advising  you 
exactly  as  I  should  advise  my  own  son.' 

"  And  having  thus  discharged  his  conscience, 
he  would  look  blandly  around  with  the  most 
patriarchal  air  imaginable. 

"  His  practice  accorded  with  his  precept. 
Some  pigs,  the  property  of  a  gentleman  who 
had  recently  settled  near  Dunleckny,  strayed 
into  an  enclosure  of  King  Bagenal's,  and  rooted 
up  a  flower  knot.  The  incensed  monarch 
ordered  that  the  porcine  trespassers  should  be 
shorn  of  their  ears  and  tails ;  and  he  transmitted 
the  severed  appendages  to  the  owner  of  the 
swine  with  an  intimation  that  he,  too,  deserved 
to  have  his  ears  docked  ;  and  that  only  he  had 
not  got  a  tail,  he  (^King  Bagenal)  would  sever 
the  caudal  member  from  his  dorsal  extremity. 
'  Now,'  quoth  Bagenal,  '  if  he's  a  gentleman,  he 
must  burn  powder  after  such  a  message  as 
that.' 

"  Nor   was   he   disappointed.       A   challenge 


6  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

was  given  by  the  owner  of  the  pigs.  Bagenal 
accepted  it  with  alacrity,  only  stipulating  that  as 
he  was  old  and  feeble,  being  then  in  his  seventy- 
ninth  year,  he  should  fight  sitting  in  his  arm- 
chair ;  and  that  as  his  infirmities  prevented  early 
rising,  the  meeting  should  take  place  in  the 
afternoon.  *  Time  was,'  said  the  old  man,  Avith 
a  sigh,  '  that  I  would  have  risen  before  daylight 
to  fight  at  sunrise,  but  we  cannot  do  these  things 
at  seventy-eight.     Well,  Heaven's  will  be  done.' 

"They  fought  at  twelve  paces.  Bagenal 
wounded  his  antagonist  severely  ;  the  arm  of 
the  chair  in  which  he  sat  was  shattered,  but  he 
remained  unhurt ;  and  he  ended  the  day  with 
a  glorious  carouse,  tapping  the  claret,  we  may 
presume,  as  usual,  by  firing  a  pistol  at  the  cask. 

"  The  traditions  of  Dunleckny  allege  that 
when  Bagenal,  in  the  course  of  his  tour  through 
Europe,  visited  the  petty  court  of  Mecklenburg 
Strelitz,  the  Grand  Duke,  charmed  with  his  mag- 
nificence and  the  reputation  of  his  wealth,  made 
him  an  offer  of  the  hand  of  the  fair  Charlotte, 
who,  being  politely  rejected  by  King  Bagenal, 
was  afterwards  accepted  by  King  George  III."  ^ 

The  great  factor  in  shaping  the  gentlemen  of 
the  type  described  was  the  code  of  penal  laws 
against  the  Catholics  which  began  under  King 
William  and  assumed  its  worst  features  under 
Queen  Anne.  At  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  the  struggle  between  the  Protestants 

1  Daunt's  Eiyhty-Jlve  Years  of  Irish  History,  jip.  C)~7. 


IRISH   SOCIETY  7 

and  the  Catholics  for  the  control  of  the  country 
ended  in  a  victory  for  the  Protestants.  After 
the  victory  the  Parliament  and  the  power  of 
the  country  were  in  Protestant  hands.  The 
penal  code  passed  by  the  Parliament  aimed  to 
root  the  old  Irish  from  the  soil,  to  disinherit 
them  and  transfer  the  ownership  of  the  land 
from  the  Irish  Catholics  to  the  Protestants, 
and  further  to  stamp  out  the  Roman  Catholic 
faith  in  Ireland,  if  possible,  or  in  any  case  to 
rob  it  of  even  a  shadow  of  political  importance. 
The  scope  of  this  code,  its  petty  tyranny,  and 
how  it  galled  the  Catholics  whom  it  was  in- 
tended to  degrade,  will  become  clear  from  a 
brief  summary  of  its  main  provisions  :  — 

"Under  these  laws  Catholics  could  not  sit 
in  the  Irish  Parliament  or  vote  members  to  it. 
They  were  excluded  from  the  army,  and  navy, 
the  magistracy,  and  the  bar,  the  bench,  the 
grand  juries,  and  the  vestries.  They  could  not 
be  sheriffs,  or  soldiers,  game-keepers,  or  con- 
stables. They  were  forbidden  to  own  any  arms, 
and  any  two  justices  or  sheriffs  might  at  any 
time  issue  a  search  warrant  for  arms.  The  dis- 
covery of  any  kind  of  weapons  rendered  their 
Catholic  owner  liable  to  fines,  imprisonment, 
whipping,  or  the  pillory.  They  could  not  own 
a  horse  worth  more  than  five  pounds,  and  any 


8  IRISH  LIFE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 

Protestant  tendering  that  sum  could  compel  his 
Catholic  neighbor  to  sell  his  steed.  No  edu- 
cation whatever  was  allowed  to  Catholics.  A 
Catholic  could  not  go  to  the  university  ;  he 
might  not  be  the  guardian  of  a  child  ;  he  might 
not  keep  a  school,  or  send  his  children  to  be 
educated  abroad,  or  teach  himself.  No  Catholic 
might  buy  land,  or  inherit  or  receive  it  as  a  gift 
from  Protestants,  or  hold  life  annuities,  or  lease 
it  for  more  than  thirty-one  years,  or  any  lease  on 
such  terms  as  that  the  profits  of  the  land  ex- 
ceeded one-third  the  value  of  the  land.  If  a 
Catholic  purchased  an  estate,  the  first  Protes- 
tant who  informed  against  him  became  its  pro- 
prietor. The  eldest  son  of  a  Catholic,  upon 
apostatizing,  became  heir  at  law  to  the  whole 
estate  of  his  father,  and  reduced  his  father  to 
the  position  of  a  mere  life  tenant.  A  wife  who 
apostatized  was  immediately  freed  from  her  hus- 
band's control,  and  assigned  a  certain  portion  of 
her  husband's  property.  Any  child,  however 
young,  who  professed  to  be  a  Protestant,  was 
at  once  taken  from  his  father's  care,  and  a  cer- 
tain proportion  of  his  father's  property  assigned 
to  him.  In  fact,  the  Catholics  were  excluded, 
in  their  own  country,  from  every  profession, 
from  every  Government  office  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest,  and  from  almost  every  duty  or 
privilege  of  a  citizen.''  ^ 

These   penal   laws,  which   favored   the   gay, 
reckless,  sporting   Protestant   gentry,  brought 

1  Justin  McCarthy's  Outline  of  Irish  History,  p.  Al, 


IRISH   SOCIETY  9 

the  Catholic  gentlemen  face  to  face  with  almost 
intolerable  conditions.  The  flower  of  them 
left  a  country  where  a  spirit  of  selfish  monopoly 
ruled,  to  seek  their  fortunes  in  other  lands. 
To  those  of  them  who  remained  in  Ireland  two 
courses  were  open,  —  to  turn  Protestant  and  step 
at  once  into  the  privileged  class,  or  to  acquiesce 
in  the  humiliating  and  unmanning  conditions 
imposed  by  the  code.  Many  of  the  Catholic 
gentlemen  chose  the  former  course  and  con- 
formed to  the  Established  Church.  Those  who 
chose  the  other  alternative,  and  held  fast  to  the 
old  faith,  often  sank  down  through  enforced 
apathy  and  ignorance  to  a  condition  not  far 
above  the  peasantry  about  them. 

The  Catholic  gentry  suffered  grievously  from 
the  code,  but  it  was  the  peasantry  most  espe- 
cially who  bore  its  brand.  Their  ignorance, 
their  lawlessness,  their  fervent  devotion  to 
their  faith,  were  in  large  measure  due  to  it. 

The  social  life  of  Ireland  centred  in  Dublin, 
and  the  social  life  of  the  smaller  towns  was  cut 
as  closely  as  possible  after  the  same  pattern. 
The  years  from  1782  to  the  end  of  the  century 
were  the  palmy  days  of  the  Ireland  of  the  Ascen- 
dency, the  days  of  drink  and  debt,  improvidence 


10  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

and  extravagance.  The  Irish  capital  was  tu- 
multuous. Street  brawls  growing  out  of  religious 
feuds  were  of  frequent  occurrence,  some,  by  the 
number  of  combatants  and  their  sj^stematic 
conduct,  more  like  pitched  battles.  In  1790  one 
of  these  conflicts  occurred  in  which  above  a 
thousand  men  were  engaged,  a  society  of  Prot- 
estant weavers  and  tailors  pitting  themselves 
against  a  band  of  Catholic  butchers  Avho  ad- 
vanced under  a  banner  inscribed  "  V.  B.  Mary."  ^ 
The  watchmen  of  the  city  gave  up  all  hope 
of  controlling  the  disturbance,  and  retired  to 
a  point  of  vantage,  well  out  of  reach  of  stick 
and  stone,  to  enjoy  the  spectacle.  Tlie  disturb- 
ance was  formally  reported  to  the  Mayor,  but 
he  declined  to  interfere,  on  the  ground  that  "  it 
was  as  much  as  his  life  was  worth  to  go  among 
them."  A  curious  fact  in  connection  with 
these  rows  was  the  participation  in  them  of  tlie 
young  aristocrats  —  the  bucks  and  beaux  of 
Dublin,  and  the  students  of  Trinity  College, 
who  could  have  no  other  motive  than  a  liking 
for  the  sport  on  its  own  account.  The  Trinity 
boys,  with   their  strong  esprit   de  corps,  were 

^  [J.  K.  AValsh's]  Treland  Sixty  Yearn  A<ji).  Chap.  I,  con- 
tains an  account  of  these  street  tights. 


IRISH  SOCIETY  11 

alwaj^s  a  valuable  acquisition  to  a  faction,  and 
with  the  great  keys  of  their  rooms  slung  in  the 
tails  of  their  gowns  did  splendid  execution. 
A  number  of  clubs,  resembling  the  London 
Mohocks,  contributed  to  the  disorders  of  the 
city.  Wild  young  fellows,  often  of  the  better 
sort,  made  up  the  membership.  Notable  among 
these  were  the  Hell- Fire  Club  (perhaps  the 
most  notorious  of  all),  the  Hawkabites,  Chero- 
kees,  Sweaters,  Pinkindindies,  and  Chalkers. 
Each  had  its  peculiar  excuse  for  existing,  and 
all  had  in  common  the  purpose  "  to  be  sociable 
together,"  and,  after  dining,  to  pour  tumultu- 
ously  into  the  midnight  streets,  "  flown  with 
insolence  and  wine,"  and  bent  upon  breaking 
the  King's  peace  in  one  way  or  another.  The 
specialty  of  the  Sweaters  was  midnight  raids 
upon  the  homes  of  Catholics  on  the  pretext  of 
searching  for  arms.  The  search  for  arms  was 
the  pretext ;  the  real  motive  the  pleasure  of 
terrorizing  the  household.  The  Chalkers  and 
Pinkindindies  made  a  specialty,  as  an  act  passed 
against  the  former  in  1773  recites,  of  "  mangling 
others,  merely  with  the  wanton  and  wicked  intent 
to  disable  and  disfigure  them."  Their  operations 
were  by  way  of  rebuke  to  dunning  or  procrasti- 


12  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

nating  tradesmen  and  the  like,  or  to  a  barber, 
perhaps,  who  disappointed  one  of  the  members 
when  his  services  were  the  condition  of  attend- 
ance at  a  dinner  or  ball.  The  Pinkindindies 
were  ingeniously  humane.  Shrinking  from  in- 
flicting upon  their  victims  the  slightest  serious 
injury,  they  cut  off  the  tips  of  the  scabbards  of 
their  swords,  and  were  thus  enabled  to  prick 
them  full  of  holes  without  fear  of  going  beyond 
the  bounds  of  a  good  practical  joke. 

The  Dublin  society  of  rank  and  fashion,  the 
most  brilliant  that  Ireland  had  to  offer,  was  in 
full  bloom  just  after  the  Irish  Parliament  re- 
gained its  freedom.  The  removal  at  this  time 
of  commercial  restrictions  gave  an  impulse  to 
prosperity,  and  better  times  seemed  to  be 
dawning.  The  Parliament  met  yearly,  and 
for  each  season  the  members  took  up  their 
abode  in  Dublin,  composing  a  leading  class. 
Two  hundred  and  fifty  of  the  peerage  and 
three  hundred  of  the  House  of  Commons,  Avitli 
their  families  and  connections,  annually  poured 
into  town  from  their  country  seats.  Among  the 
peerage  there  was  much  wealth,  taste,  and  culti- 
vation, and  the  polish  and  elegance  that  travel 
and  a  wide  intercourse  with  society  in  England 


IRISH  SOCIETY  13 

and  on  the  continent  produced.  A  large  pro- 
portion of  the  House  of  Commons  were  the 
true  old  gentry  of  the  land,  of  the  most  hearty 
and  festive  type,  overflowing  with  family  pride, 
sociability,  and  a  hospitality  whose  manifesta- 
tions prudence  was  never  permitted  to  check. 
In  the  wake  of  the  gentry  came  many  of  the 
country  class,  with  all  their  provincial  and 
personal  oddities  and  eccentricities,  to  give 
society  a  touch  of  distinctly  local  color. 

The  eighteenth  century  was  everywhere  a 
century  of  violence  and  hard  drinking.  In 
Dublin  the  violence  found  an  outlet  in  disturb- 
ances like  those  alluded  to  above,  in  which  the 
lower  classes  and  some  wild  fellows  of  the 
better  sort  participated.  But  for  the  nobility 
and  gentry  duelling  was  the  mania,  and  it  was 
indulged  in  to  an  extent  almost  beyond  belief. 
Sir  Jonah  Barrington  in  his  Personal  Sketches 
vouches  for  two  hundred  and  twenty-seven 
memorable  and  official  duels  fought  in  his  time, 
and  the  author  of  Ireland  Sixty  Years  Ago 
states  that  three  hundred  duels  by  men  of  note 
were  fought  between  1780-1800.  Even  the 
gravest  persons  settled  their  differences  in 
single  combat.     Sir  Jonah's  remark,  "  I  think  I 


14  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

may  challenge  any  country  in  Europe  to  show 
such  an  assemblage  of  g?i\\ant  judicial  and  offi- 
cial antagonists  at  fire  and  sword,"  ^  cannot  be 
gainsaid.  Scarcely  a  man  on  the  bench  or  at  the 
bar  could  be  found  who  had  not  fought  at  least 
one  duel. 2 

In  1777  a  lack  of  uniformity  in  the  conduct  of 
affairs  of  honor  was  universally  recognized  by 
the  gentlemen  of  Ireland  as  a  crying  evil   no 

1  Barrington's  Personal  Sketches,  Vol.  I,  p.  270. 

2  An  extract  from  a  long  list  of  duels  given  by  Sir 
Jonah  indicates  the  universality  of  the  custom  among  all 
classes  :  — 

"The  Lord  Chancellor  of  Ireland,  Earl  Clare,  fought  the 
Master  of  the  Rolls,  Curran. 

"The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  the  Right  Honorable 
Isaac  Corry,  fought  the  Right  Honorable  Henry  Grattan,  a 
Privy  Counsellor, 

"The  Chief  Justice  C.  P.,  Lord  Norbury,  fought  Fire- 
eater  Fitzgerald,  and  two  other  gentlemen,  and  frifjhtened 
Napper  Tandy  and  several  besides  :  only  one  hit, 

"The  provost  of  the  University  of  Dublin,  the  Rt.  Hon. 
Hely  Hutchinson,  fought  Mr.  Doyle,  master  in  Chanceiy,  — 
and  some  others, 

"Counsellor  0'(>onnell  fought  the  champion  of  the  Cor- 
poration, Captain  d'  ICst^rre  :  fatal  to  the  champion  of  I'rot- 
estant  Ascendency." — Ibid,  Vol.  I,  i)p.  271-272. 


IRISH  SOCIETY  15 

longer  to  be  endured.  A  reform  was  conse- 
quently instituted.  Delegates  from  different 
quarters  met  at  Clonmel  and  drew  up  a  code 
called  the  "  Thirty-six  Commandments,"  to 
hold  good  throughout  the  country.  The  head- 
ing of  this  code  ran  :  — 

*'  The  practice  of  duelling  and  points  of  honor 
settled  at  Clonmel  summer  assizes,  1777,  by 
the  gentlemen  delegates  of  Tipperary,  Galway, 
Mayo,  Sligo,  and  Roscommon,  and  prescribed 
for  general  adoption  throughout  Ireland.'' 

In  his  chapter  on  the  "  Fire-Eaters,"  Barring- 
ton  declares  that  a  duel  was  considered  a  neces- 
sary part  of  a  young  man's  education,  but  in 
no  way  a  ground  of  future  animosity  toward 
his  opponent.  "  No  young  fellow,"  he  says, 
"  could  finish  his  education  till  he  had  ex- 
changed shots  T^dth  some  of  his  acquaintances. 
The  first  two  questions  always  asked  as  to  a 
young  man's  respectability  and  qualifications, 
when  he  proposed  for  a  lady-wife,  were,  '  What 
family  is  he  of  ?  '  —  'Did  he  ever  blaze  ?  '  "  i 

The  duelling  mania  began  to  die  out  toward 
1800,  though  long  after  that  date  duels  were 
not  of  very  rare  occurrence.  It  was  well  on  in 
1  Barrington's  Personal  Sketches,  Vol.  I,  p.  273. 


16  IRISH  LIFE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 

the  nineteenth  century  that  Daniel  O'Connell 
was  challenged  by  Disraeli  for  having  referred 
to  him  in  a  speech  to  his  constituents  as  "a 
lineal  descendant  of  the  impenitent  thief." 
Charles  Lever,  one  of  the  Irish  novelists,  called 
out  S.  C.  Hall,  the  husband  of  another  Irish 
novelist,  travelling  all  the  way  to  London  for 
an  exchange  of  shots,  though  for  some  reason 
or  other  the  meeting  never  took  place  ;  and 
the  duel  of  another  Irish  writer,  Maginn,  with 
Grantley  Berkeley  is  a  well-known  incident  of 
literary  history.  Duelling  has  had  its  day, 
and  is  now  in  disfavor  ;  but  the  men  of  a  cen- 
tury ago  dwelt  on  its  advantages :  bad  blood 
was  got  rid  of ;  it  wiped  out  old  scores  ;  and 
it  put  a  stop  to  the  everlasting  lawsuits  in 
which  Irishmen  seemed  to  be  always  in- 
volved, for  the  "  trigger  process "  set  aside 
the  legal. 

The  gentry  of  Ireland  were  notoriously  hard 
drinkers,  and  on  this  score  surpassed  those  of 
the  same  class  in  England.  Englishmen  were 
astonished  at  their  capacity  and  endurance. 
An  attorney  named  John  Howard,  writing  in 
1776  on  the  evils  of  his  profession  and  tlie  need 
of  reform,  said  it  was   a   common   remark   of 


IRISH  SOCIETY  17 

English  men  of  business  who  visited  Dublin 
that  "  they  could  not  conceive  how  men  in  this 
kingdom  transacted  any  business,  for  they 
seemed  to  do  nothing  but  walk  the  courts  the 
whole  morning,  and  devote  the  whole  evening 
to  the  bottle."  ^  Habits  of  intemperate  drink- 
ing were  very  general  in  the  last  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  duel- 
ling, not  even  the  gravest  were  exempt  from 
this  indulgence.  "The  great  end  and  aim  of 
life  in  the  upper  classes,"  says  the  author  of 
Ireland  Sixty  Years  Ago^  ".  .  .  seemed  to  be  con- 
vivial indulgence  to  excess.  The  rule  of  drink- 
ing was  that  no  man  was  allowed  to  leave  the 
company  until  he  was  unable  to  standi  and 
then  he  might  depart  if  he  could  walk."  The 
writers  of  memoirs  have  thought  it  v/orth  while 
to  chronicle  many  of  the  customs  that  prevailed 
among  the  convivialists  of  the  day.  Under 
the  head  of  "Customs  and  Precepts  of  Drink- 
ing," the  writer  quoted  above  mentions  the  fol- 
lowing among  many  others.  Round-bottomed 
decanters,  which  could  not  stand  of  themselves 
but  must  pass  from  hand  to  hand,  were  used  to 
prevent  the  stopping  of  the  bottle.     The  stems 

1  Ireland  Sixty  Years  Ago,  p.  68. 
c 


18  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

of  glasses  were  knocked  off  with  a  knife  so 
that  the  glasses  must  be  emptied  before  they 
could  be  set  upon  the  table  again.  Sir  Jonah 
Barrington  tells  a  tale  of  a  host  who  was  en- 
tertaining a  number  of  gentlemen  at  dinner. 
When  the  viands  were  removed,  and  the  gentle- 
men sat  over  their  wine,  he  arose,  locked  the 
door,  tossed  the  key  out  of  the  window  to  a  ser- 
vant, and  announced  that  the  doors  would  be 
opened  at  the  close  of  the  festivities.  Not  the 
least  ingenious  of  the  devices  contrived  by  the 
thirsty  souls  to  spur  on  lukewarm  devotees  to 
the  bottle  and  prevent  "stealing  away"  Avas 
that  of  a  host  who  possessed  a  mechanical  side- 
board that  of  its  own  volition  took  up  a  position 
across  the  door  after  the  feast  was  well  under 
way.  But  these  efforts,  to  judge  from  innu- 
merable anecdotes  in  the  novels,  and  in  tlie 
memoirs  of  the  time  illustrating  the  unmeasured 
devotion  to  the  bottle,  were  altogether  works 
of  supererogation. 

T.  C.  Grattan,  in  Highways  and  Bi/ways^ 
gives  a  picturesque  illustration  of  the  convivial 
customs  of  the  time  in  an  anecdote  of  tlie  days 
of  liis  youtli.  lie  was  tlie  guest  of  a  country 
squire  at  dinner.     The  entertainment  went  on 


IRISH   SOCIETY  19 

for  hours  in  the  usual  hihirious  way,  when 
suddenly  the  host  called  for  silence ;  the 
servant  was  summoned,  and  ordered  to  open 
the  shutters,  whereupon  the  bright  light  of  a 
sunny  morning  poured  in  upon  the  revel. 
Through  the  window  were  seen  the  huntsmen, 
the  hounds,  and  the  horses  ready  saddled,  and 
those  who  were  able  were  invited  to  step  from 
the  table  into  the  saddle,  and  powdered  off 
across  country  after  the  dogs. 

Another  striking  feature  of  this  society,  as 
it  was  in  fact  of  every  social  class,  was  the 
passion  for  giving  a  touch  of  absurdity  to  every 
transaction  of  life.  It  was  carried  into  even 
life-and-death  matters  —  duelling,  for  instance. 
Thus  Fitzpatrick,  in  his  Life  of  Lever^  tells  of 
a  duel  fought  indoors  across  the  table  of  the 
dinner-room,  in  which  the  seconds,  lightly 
regarding  their  responsibilities,  charged  the 
pistols  with  squibs  of  powder  and  red-currant 
jelly,  and  then  stood  by  to  enjoy  the  astonish- 
ment of  the  principals,  as  each  stared  aghast  at 
the  apparently  frightful  damage  done  the  coun- 
tenance of  his  opponent.  It  must  have  been 
with  something  of  a  sense  of  comic  incongruity 
too,  that  politicians,  judges  on  the  bench,  and 


20  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

ministers  of  state  emulated  the  performances  of 
the  hilt-and-muzzle  boys,  until  it  was  said  of 
some  that  they  "shot  into  preferment."  The 
proceedings  of  the  Hell-Fire  Club,  the  Pinkin- 
dindies,  and  like  associations  had  always  some 
touch  of  savage  humor.  In  fact,  it  was 
certainly  a  whim  of  the  day,  or  a  national  trait 
perhaps,  to  turn  the  tragic  to  grotesque  and 
the  serious  to  burlesque. 

The  leaders  of  fashion  in  the  days  of  1T82 
kept  up  princely  establishments  and  gave  en- 
tertainments on  the  grand  scale.  The  court 
of  the  viceroy  set  the  pace,  and  the  rest  were 
not  slow  to  follow.  The  seeds  of  extravagance 
had  been  sown  in  the  past  by  the  social  condi- 
tions under  which  many  of  the  nobility  and 
gentry  grew  up,  and  they  flowered  at  this  time. 
All  seemed  running  a  wild  race  to  ruin,  the 
effects  of  which  were  felt  far  into  the  following 
century.  Coaches-and-six  and  coaches-and- 
four  were  plenty.  These,  with  long  rows  of 
carriages  and  horsemen,  made  gay  the  fasli ion- 
able  drives  of  Dublin.  But  the  pace  was  too 
rapid  to  be  sustained.  The  Rebellion  and  the 
Union  brought  the  revel  abruptly  to  an  end. 
The  crash  came  with  the  Union.     ]\Iany  of  the 


IRISH  SOCIETY  21 

gentry  were  embarrassed ;  many  were  utterly 
ruined.  An  exodus  took  place  to  the  coun- 
try or  to  the  continent  to  recuperate  from 
the  effects  of  this  reckless  profusion  and 
extravagance. 

The  contrast  between  the  life  of  these  wits, 
duellists,  and  convivialists,  which  centred  in 
Dublin,  and  the  life  of  the  peasantry  in  the 
country  at  large  was  even  stronger  than  the 
usual  contrast  between  the  life  of  gayety, 
wealth,  and  fashion  and  the  life  of  the  sons 
of  the  soil.  The  eighteenth  century  was  for 
the  peasant,  crushed  into  quiescent  misery  by 
the  code,  a  time  of  wretched  discontent.  The 
legal  tyranny  under  which  the  peasants  groaned 
left  them,  as  Swift  bitterly  said,  "hewers  of 
wood  and  drawers  of  water  to  their  con- 
querors." They  were  mainly  cotters,  sunk  in 
extreme  poverty.  Cold  and  famine  killed 
them  off  by  thousands. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  two  aims  of  the 
penal  laws  were  to  transfer  the  land  of  Ireland 
from  Catholic  to  Protestant  hands  and  to  extir- 
pate Romanism.  In  the  first  aim  they  were 
eminently  successful;  in  the  second  they  failed 
completely.      The  measure  of  their  success  in 


22  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

eradicating  Catholicism  lay  in  the  apostasy  of 
numbers  of  Catholic  gentlemen  to  save  their 
estates.  On  the  whole,  persecution  had  its  usual 
effect.  It  only  served  to  deepen  faith,  to 
crown  it  with  a  halo,  and  to  make  it  dear  and 
sacred  to  the  mass  of  people.  Throughout  a 
long  ordeal  of  religious  persecution  the  major- 
ity of  the  peasantry  remained  faithful  to  their 
creed,  and  emerged  from  the  trial  penetrated 
with  an  attachment  to  it,  unsurpassed,  if  not 
unequalled,  elsewhere. 

It  was  natural  that  the  peasant  should  hate 
the  law  which  to  him  was  the  maleficent  power 
that  persecuted  his  creed.  From  this  feeling, 
in  part,  arose  the  lawlessness  that  character- 
ized peasant  life.  This  took  form  chiefly  in 
the  organized  operations  of  the  secret  societies 
which  waged  desperate  war  especially  upon  the 
intolerable  land  system  and  upon  the  collec- 
tion of  tithes.  They  undertook  to  regulate 
the  whole  relation  of  landlord  and  tenant, 
and  to  enforce  a  system  of  law  different  from 
the  law  of  the  land.  The  outrages  of  the 
societies  were  systematically  planned  and  suc- 
cessfully directed  to  the  enforcement  of  their 
code.     Any  who  infringed  this  code  or  refused 


IRISH   SOCIETY  28 

to  obey  the  demands  of  the  societies  were  pun- 
ished with  great  atrocity.  Such  offenders 
were  often  mulihxted  or  murdered;  or  their 
houses  were  burned,  their  crops  destroyed,  or 
their  cattle  houghed  or  killed.  The  operations 
of  the  societies  were  at  times  so  extensive  and 
successful  as  to  reduce  large  districts  of  the 
countr}^  almost  to  anarchy. 

The  peasantry  were  as  fond  of  breaking  the 
King's  peace  as  the  gentry.  Fighting  was 
a  common  amusement.  The  peasants  took 
to  the  cudgel  as  the  upper  classes  took  to 
the  pistol.  The  national  pugnacity  found 
an  outlet  in  the  party  and  faction  fights 
in  which  large  bodies  of  men  were  often  en- 
gaged. In  the  so-called  Battle  of  the  Diamond, 
fought  in  1795,  several  hundred  men  partici- 
pated, and  between  twenty  and  thirty  of  the 
combatants  were  left  dead  upon  the  field.  In 
the  party  fights  Protestants  ranged  themselves 
against  Catholics.  The  faction  fights  were  not 
religious  quarrels,  but  grew  out  of  private 
feuds  which  often  divided  the  fighting  men  of 
a  village  into  hostile  ranks. 

The  penal  laws  kept  the  peasantry  as  ignorant 
as    they  were  poor  and   lawless.     They  could 


24  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH    FICTION 

not,  like  the  well-to-do  Catholics,  send  their 
children  to  the  continent  to  be  educated,  and 
whatever  education  they  received  was  from  the 
hedge-schoolmasters,  who,  in  spite  of  statutes 
and  informers,  established  themselves  here  and 
there  throughout  the  country. 

It  is  to  this  life  of  the  poor  Catholic  peasantry 
and  inactive  Catholic  gentry,  alike  depressed 
by  legal  tyranny,  and  to  the  life  of  the  Protes- 
tant gentry,  unduly  stimulated  to  recklessness 
and  gayety  by  their  political  fortune,  that  the 
Irish  novelists  generally  turn  for  the  scenes, 
incidents,  and  types  of  their  stories. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  NOVELISTS   OF   THE    GENTRY 

The  picturesque  and  interesting  life  of 
Ireland  was  first  brought  into  fiction  by  Miss 
Edge  worth.  She  is  the  earliest  of  the  novelists 
to  be  considered  here,  —  the  group  of  Irish 
novelists  whose  literary  activity  began  before 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  who 
wrote  of  Irish  life,  for  the  most  part,  as  it  was 
between  1750  and  1850.  These  novelists  con- 
stitute, roughly  speaking,  a  group  by  them- 
selves in  giving  an  account  at  first  hand  —  or 
at  least  such  as  they  received  from  the  lips  of 
the  preceding  generation  —  of  social  conditions, 
of  modes  of  existence,  types  of  character,  and 
ways  of  thought  and  feeling,  which,  from  the 
effects  of  the  great  famine  of  1847,  and  under 
the  influence  of  the  writers  of  1848,  underwent 
sudden  and  radical  changes,  and  have  now 
passed  away  forever,  or  survive  only  here  and 

25 


2G  IRISH   LIFE    IN   IRISH   FICTION 

there  in  remote  corners  of  the  land.  Within 
this  gronp  there  are  two  classes  of  novelists  — 
the  novelists  of  the  gentry  and  the  novelists  of 
the  peasantry  ;  or  more  explicitly  those  who 
on  the  whole  take  the  point  of  view  of  the 
gentry  and  write  in  the  spirit  of  the  gentry, 
and  those  who  on  the  whole  take  the  point  of 
view  of  the  peasantry  and  write  in  the  spirit 
of  the  peasantry.  And  among  the  novelists 
of  the  gentry  there  is  a  division,  also,  into 
those  who  write  chiefly  of  the  gentry  and  those 
who  write  chiefly  of  the  peasantry. 

I.    The  novelists  of  the  gentry  who  write  chiefly 
of  the  gentry 

Miss  Edge  worth,  who  came  of  an  old  County 
Longford  family  of  English  descent  that  had 
been  settled  at  Edgeworthtown  for  nearly  two 
hundred  years,  was  by  the  circumstances  of 
her  life  admirably  fitted  for  her  work  as  a 
novelist  of  manners.  She  was  born  in  Eng- 
land in  1767  and  lived  there  until  she 
was  fifteen  years  of  age.  When  she  came  to 
make  her  home  in  Ireland  she  was  thus  old 
enough  to  be  struck  by  the  strangeness  and 
quaintness    of    Irish    life,   and    not   too   old   to 


THE    NOVELISTS   OF   THE   GENTRY  27 

come  to  a  good  understanding  of  it  and  sympa- 
thy with  it.  Assisting  her  father  as  his  factor 
in  all  the  details  of  the  management  of  a  large 
estate,  and  participating  in  all  his  schemes  for 
the  education  and  improvement  of  the  tenants, 
she  came  to  know  the  Irish  peasant  intimately. 
Visits  to  friends  and  relatives  of  the  country- 
side gave  her  also  a  varied  knowledge  of  the 
country  life  of  the  nobility  and  gentry.  For 
the  best  part  of  eighteen  years  before  her  first 
Irish  novel  appeared  Miss  Edgeworth  was  a 
shrewd  observer  of  Irish  society.  During  these 
years  she  also  saw  something  of  English  coun- 
try life,  of  society  in  London  and  Dublin, 
and  of  the  great  world  in  these  cities  and  on 
the  continent.  Travel  and  society  gave  to  her 
pictures  of  Ireland  a  certain  perspective  that  is 
often  wanting  in  Irish  fiction. 

Miss  Edgeworth's  personality  was  what  might 
be  guessed  from  her  novels  —  lively,  witty, 
shrewd,  kindly,  warm-hearted,  and  withal  a 
trifle  prim  and  old-maidish.  In  many  respects 
she  was  un-Irish.  Her  evenness  of  spirits, 
restraint,  and  prudence  equal  to  every  occa- 
sion, were  not  peculiarly  the  traits  of  her 
compatriots.     It   was    her    temperament    that 


28  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

set  the  limits  to  the  reach  of  her  sympathy 
with  Irish  character,  genuine  and  hearty  as 
that  sym2:)athy  was  so  far  as  it  went.  She  had 
not  the  key  that  unlocks  the  Irish  nature  in 
its  extremes  of  feeling,  and  in  the  quick 
changefulness  —  from  joy  to  sorrow,  from  love 
to  hate,  from  buoyant  mirth  to  reckless  fury 
—  which  makes  up  its  mysterious  diversity. 

Miss  Edgeworth  was  of  those  who  find  entire 
satisfaction  in  their  environment.  Pier  domes- 
tic life  was  one  of  rare  contentment  and  quiet 
happiness.  Her  love  for  her  home  and  all  the 
family  circle  was  strong;  her  father,  in  partic- 
ular, whose  didactic  propensities  exercised  from 
the  literary  point  of  view  so  evil  an  influence 
upon  her,  was  her  idol,  and  implicitly  trusted 
as  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend. 

It  was,  perhaps,  a  result  of  this  happy,  busy, 
contented  life  upon  a  conscientiously  and  care- 
fully managed  estate,  where  the  evils  of  the 
status  quo  Avero  minimized,  that,  while  she 
strove  to  correct  the  social  evils  of  her  country 
and  to  establish  good  relations  between  land- 
lord and  tenant  by  exposing  all  that  tended  to 
estrange  them,  slie  sliows  in  lior  stories  no  sign 
of  discontent  with  the  existing  order  of  things, 


THE  NOVELISTS   OF   THE   GENTRY  29 

and  carefully  avoids  referring  to  the  most  im- 
portant causes  of  Irish  misery — the  religious 
and  political.  She  is  quite  aware  of  the  faults 
and  vices  of  Irish  society  and  the  national 
character,  —  idleness  and  improvidence,  igno- 
rance and  drunkenness,  rack-renting,  middle- 
men, and  the  other  fruits  of  absenteeism; 
but  she  never  points  to  the  state  of  the  laws 
as  responsible  for  their  existence  and  con- 
tinuance. 

Four  phases  of  life  find  expression  in  the  four 
Irish  novels  that  came  from  Miss  Edge  worth's 
pen.  The  first  of  these,  and  the  first  novel  of 
Irish  life,  Castle  Rackrent  (1800),  serves  admi- 
rably as  an  introduction  to  the  Irish  squir- 
archy  of  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  story  touches  at  the  start  upon  one  of  the 
great  national  ills,  —  a  gentry  rendered  irre- 
sponsible by  the  same  social  conditions  that 
made  the  peasantry  ignorant,  lawless,  depend- 
ent, and  peculiarly  in  need  of  a  strong,  wise 
leadership.  It  is  a  faithful  picture  of  a 
national  disorder  in  an  acute  stage,  which, 
running  its  course,  in  a  few  generations  wound 
up  the  career  of  a  good  part  of  the  old  families 
of  the  land.    The  story  presents  several  broadly 


30  IRISH  LIFE    IN   IRISH  FICTION 

sketched  Irish  types,  and  gives  glimpses  into 
the  menage  of  an  Irish  country  house  of  the 
period. 

The  story  of  the  Rackrents  is  told  by  old 
Thady,  the  steward,  in  his  own  words.  The 
Rackrent  family  is  one  of  ancient  ancestry  and 
high  pretensions,  and  possessed  of  a  good  estate 
which  still  allows  them  to  think  themselves  the 
first  people  in  the  district.  Sir  Patrick,  the 
first  of  them  to  appear,  is  the  type  of  the  home- 
bred country  gentleman  of  the  true  festive, 
hilarious,  and  hard-going  variety.  He  is  the 
Irish  Squire  Western,  except  that  he  wants  the 
latter's  shrewd  eye  to  the  main  chance.  Old 
Thady  describes  the  boundless  generosity  and 
barbarous  profusion  that  were  the  glory  of 
Castle  Rackrent  when  Sir  Patrick  reigned, 
with  the  pride  and  enthusiasm  which  such 
displays  never  failed  to  kindle  in  the  breast 
of  an  Irish  retainer.  Sir  Patrick  is  celebrating 
his  succession  to  the  estate  :  — 

''  Now  it  was,"  says  Thady,  "  tlie  world  was 
to  see  what  was  in  Sir  Patrick.  On  coming 
into  the  estate  he  gave  the  finest  entertainment 
ever  was  heard  of  in  this  country  ;  not  a  man 
couhl    stand    after    supper    but    Sir     Patrick 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   GENTRY  31 

himself,  who  could  sit  out  the  best  man  in 
Ireland,  let  alone  the  three  kingdoms  itself. 
He  had  his  house  from  one  year's  end  to 
another  as  full  of  company  as  it  could  hold,  and 
fuller  ;  for  rather  than  be  left  out  of  the  parties 
at  Castle  Rackrent,  many  gentlemen,  and  those 
men  of  the  first  consequence  and  landed  estates 
in  the  country,  made  it  their  choice  often  and 
often,  when  there  was  no  room  to  be  had  for 
love  nor  money,  in  long  winter  nights  to  sleep 
in  the  chicken  house,  which  Sir  Patrick  had 
fitted  up  for  the  purpose  of  accommodating  his 
friends  and  the  public  in  general,  who  honored 
him  unexf)ectedly  with  their  company  at  Castle 
Rackrent ;  and  this  went  on  I  can't  tell  how 
long.  The  whole  country  rang  with  his  praises  ! 
Long  life  to  him  ! . . .  A  few  days  before  his  death 
he  was  very  merry  ;  it- being  his  honor's  birth- 
day, he  called  my  grandfather  in  —  God  bless 

him  !  —  to  drink  the  company's  health Then 

he  fell  to  singing  the  favorite  song  he  learned 
from  his  father  ;  for  the  last  time,  poor  gentle- 
man, he  sung  it  that  night  as  loud  and  hearty 
as  ever,  with  a  chorus  :  — 


'  He  that  goes  to  bed,  and  goes  to  bed  sober, 
FaUs  as  the  leaves  do,  falls  as  the  leaves  do,  and  dies  in 

October ; 
But  he  that  goes  to  bed,  and  goes  to  bed  mellow, 
Lives  as  he  ought  to  do,  lives  as  he  ought  to  do,  and  dies 

an  honest  fellow.' 


Sir    Patrick    died    that    night  :     just    as    the 
company  rose  to  drink  his   health   with   three 


32  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

cheers,  he  fell  down  in  a  sort  of  fit  and  was 
carried  off  ;  they  sat  it  out,  and  were  surprised, 
on  inquiry  in  the  morning,  to  find  that  it  was 
all  over  with  poor  Sir  Patrick.  Never  did  any 
gentleman  live  and  die  more  beloved  in  the 
country  by  rich  and  poor."  ^ 

The  inscription  on  the  stone  set  up  in  Rack- 
rent  Church  in  memory  of  Sir  Patrick  might 
have  served  as  the  epitaph  of  half  the  gentry  of 
the  kingdom,  —  "  Sir  Patrick  lived  and  died  a 
monument  of  old  Irish  hospitality." 

Against  the  thriftlessness  and  wild  waste 
that  in  general  belonged  to  the  gentry,  there 
was  an  occasional  reaction  in  the  shape  of  per- 
sons given  over  to  avarice.  Such  characters 
were  peculiarly  offensive  to  the  generous,  free- 
handed Irish  nature.  One  may  look  in  vain  in 
the  Irish  novels  to  find  a  character  in  whose 
make-up  closeness  or  avarice  is  an  element 
presented  in  an  amiable  light.  Characters 
like  Sir  Walter's  antiquary  do  not  find  a  place 
in  the  affections  of  the  Irish.  This  feeling 
accounts  for  Thady's  contempt  for  Sir  Murtagh, 
who  succeeded  to  the  Rackrent  estate  at  the 
end  of  Sir  Patrick's  glorious  reign.  Sir  Mur- 
tagli  is  a  skinflint :  — 

1  Castle  Hackroit,  pp.  12-13. 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   GENTRY  33 

*'  The  new  man  did  not  take  at  all  after  the  old 
gentleman  ;  the  cellars  were  never  filled  as  they 
used  to  be  ;  the  tenants  even  were  sent  away 
without  their  whiskey.  I  was  ashamed  myself, 
and  knew  not  what  to  say  for  the  honor  of  the 
famHy."! 

Sir  Murtagh  is  a  hard  landlord,  too,  who  grinds 
the  face  of  the  poor  and  harasses  them  with 
vexatious  exactions.  The  easy-going  gentry 
often  let  the  tenants'  rent  run  on,  if  they  them- 
selves were  not  pressed  for  ready  money  ;  and 
when  they  were  pressed,  made  the  collecting  of 
rents  a  levying  of  tribute,  expecting  the  tenants 
on  account  of  past  indulgence  to  pinch  them- 
selves, if  need  be,  to  meet  their  demands.  The 
tenants  preferred  these  informal  ways  to  regu- 
lar business  methods.  Sir  Murtagh  disregarded 
the  good  old  customs,  insisting  upon  prompt 
payment  in  the  English  fashion.  Hence 
Thady's  sneer,  in  the  passage  describing  Sir 
Murtagh's  ways  with  the  tenants,  about  making 
English  tenants  of  them  all  :  — 

"  But  Sir  Murtagh  was  as  much  the  contrary 
way  ;  for  let  alone  making  English  tenants  of 
them  every  soul,  he  was  always  driving  and 
driving,  and  pounding  and  pounding,  and  cant- 

i/6i(2.,p.  14. 


34  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

ing  and  canting,  and  replevying  and  replevy- 
ing, and  he  made  a  good  living  of  trespassing 
cattle ;  there  was  always  some  tenant's  pig  or 
horse,  or  cow,  or  calf,  or  goose,  trespassing, 
which  was  so  great  a  gain  to  Sir  Murtagh  that 
he  did  not  like  to  hear  ine  talk  of  repairing 
fences.  Then  his  heriots  and  duty  work  brought 
him  in  something:  his  turf  was  cut,  his  potatoes 
set  and  dug,  his  hay  brought  home,  and,  in 
short,  all  the  work  about  his  house  done  for 
nothing  ;  for  in  all  our  leases  there  were  strict 
clauses,  which  Sir  Murtagh  knew  well  how  to 
enforce  ;  so  many  days'  work  of  man  and  horse, 
from  every  tenant,  he  was  to  have,  and  had 
every  year  ;  and  when  a  man  vexed  him,  why 
the  finest  day  he  would  pitch  on,  when  the  cra- 
tur  was  getting  in  his  own  harvest,  or  thatching 
his  cabin.  Sir  Murtagh  made  it  a  principle  to 
call  upon  liim  and  his  horse.  So  he  taught  'em 
all,  as  he  said,  to  know  the  law  of  landlord  and 
tenant."^ 

Sir  Kit,  who  came  into  the  estate  on  Sir 
Murtagh's  death,  is  a  figure  almost  as  familiar 
to  English  as  to  Irish  life,  a  gentleman  adven- 
turer, one  of  those  dashing,  irresponsible,  im- 
pecunious young  Irishmen  who  made  Bath  their 
hunting-ground  in  the  middle  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, where  they  went  to  try  their  luck  at  play, 
or  perchance  to  mend  their  l)r()ken  fortunes  by 
1  Castle  liacknnt,  p.  15. 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE   GENTRY  35 

running  off  with  an  heiress.  Often  strangers 
to  English  societ}^  hailing  from  parts  unknown, 
with  nothing  to  lose  and  all  to  win,  they  were 
looked  at  askance  by  English  gentlemen  as  ad- 
venturers, and  by  the  match-making  mammas  at 
Bath  as  dark  horses  in  the  matrimonial  market. 
At  the  same  time  they  commanded  by  their  read- 
iness with  sword  and  pistol  a  certain  deference 
from  all  sides.  They  were  interesting  to  the 
young  ladies,  and  by  their  dash,  gallantry,  and 
deluding  Avays  occasionally  won  a  rich  prize 
and  bore  her  off  in  triumph. 

The  Sir  Kit  of  this  story  is  admirably  hit  off. 
Thady  describes  him  as  bowling  up  to  the  door 
of  Castle  Rackrent  "  in  a  gig  or  some  of  them 
things,  with  another  spark  along  with  him,  and 
led  horses  and  servants  and  dogs  "  and  again, 
in  conversation  :  — 

"  But  one  morning,"  says  Thady,  "  my  new 
master  caught  a  glimpse  of  me  as  I  was  looking 
at  his  horse's  heels  in  hopes  of  a  word  from 
him.  '  And  is  that  all,  Thady  ? '  says  he  as  he 
got  into  his  gig  ;  I  loved  him  from  that  day  to 
this,  his  voice  was  so  like  the  family;  and  he 
threw  me  a  guinea  out  of  his  waistcoat  pocket 
as  he  drew  up  his  reins  with  the  other  hand, 
his  horse  rearing  too.     I  thought  I  never  set 


36  IRISH  LIFE  IN   IRISH  FICTION 

my  eyes  on  a  finer  figure  of  a  man,  quite  an- 
other sort  from  Sir  Murtagh,  though  withal 
to  me  a  family  likeness.  A  fine  life  we  should 
have  led,  had  he  stayed  amongst  us,  God  bless 
him  !  He  valued  a  guinea  as  little  as  any  man  : 
money  to  him  was  no  more  than  dirt,  and  his 
gentleman  and  groom,  and  all  belonging  to  him, 
the  same  ;  but  the  sporting  season  over,  he 
grew  tired  of  the  place,  and  having  got  down  a 
great  architect  for  the  house,  and  an  improver 
for  the  grounds,  and  seen  their  plans  and  ele- 
vations, he  fixed  a  day  for  settling  with  the 
tenants,  but  went  off  in  a  whirlwind  to  town 
just  as  some  of  them  came  into  the  yard  in  the 
morning."  1 


After  Sir  Kit  has  spent  his  fortune  he  mar- 
ries a  rich  Jewess  to  recover  himself,  and  ends 
his  life  in  a  duel,  the  result  of  an  entanglement 
with  three  young  ladies.  His  wife  is  ill  and 
her  demise  expected.  Each  of  the  three  ladies 
claims  the  promise  of  his  hand  in  the  event  of 
his  lady's  illness  proving  fatal,  and  their  sev- 
eral brothers  each  claim  a  shot  at  him  by  way 
of  satisfaction.  Of  two  of  his  opponents  Sir  Kit 
gets  fairly  quit,  but  from  the  third  receives  a 
ball  in  a  vital  part,  and  is  wheeled  home  in  a 
hand-barrow  to  die.  "  He  never  was  cured  of 
1  Castle  Eackrcnt,  p.  18. 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     37 

his  gaining  tricks,"  is  Thady's  verdict  on  him, 
"  but  that  was  the  only  fault  he  had,  God  bless 
him  !  " 

Sir  Condy,  described  by  Thady  as  "  the  most 
universally  beloved  man  I  have  ever  seen  or 
heard  of,"  whose  endless,  aimless  prodigality 
completes  the  ruin  of  the  Rackrents,  and  with 
whose  death  the  story  closes,  stands  best  of  the 
family  as  the  type  of  the  irresponsible  Irish 
gentleman,  the  cause  of  more  misery  and  mis- 
fortune to  Irish  society  than  even  the  hard 
landlords  that  crushed  the  poor.  He  is  the 
man  who  loves  ease  and  hates  the  bother  of 
business  ;  who  shirks  all  the  cares  and  duties  of 
a  landed  proprietor  ;  who  refuses  to  look  debts 
and  difficulties  in  the  face,  and  turns  all  over  to 
the  agent  with  a  "settle  it  anyhow,"  or  "bid 
them  call  again  to-morrow."  In  him  are  seen 
in  operation  the  curious  code  of  honor  and 
the  conflicting  characteristics  that  made  the 
Irishman  so  startlingly  strange  and  incompre- 
hensible to  other  peoples  ;  so  wayward  and 
wrong-headed,  and  yet  so  truly  good-natured  ; 
combining  in  a  remarkable  way  generosity  and 
selfishness,  unscrupulousness  and  honorable 
feeling,  kind-heartedness  and  ferocity.     Aside 


38  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

from  his  interest  as  a  national  t3"p6,  Sir  Concly  is 
attractive  on  his  own  account,  because  of  many 
qualities  that  go  to  the  make-up  of  gentlemen  of 
the  right  sort,  who,  whatever  their  foibles,  are 
kindly  disposed  toward  the  world  in  general, 
and  never  so  content  as  when  they  leave  it  on 
more  cordial  terms  with  itself  and  with  them. 
After  frittering  away  life  and  fortune  he  dies 
from  the  effect  of  a  drunken  bet  —  the  drink- 
ing a  huge  horn  of  w^hiskey  punch  at  a  draught, 
—  the  miserable  death  of  a  spendthrift  and  a 
drunkard.  The  death  scene,  as  Thady  presents 
it,  is  half  tragic,  half  grotesque  :  — 

"  There  was  none  but  my  shister  and  myself 
left  near  him  of  all  the  many  friends  he  had. 
The  fever  came  and  went,  and  came  and  went, 
and  lasted  five  days,  and  the  sixth  he  was  sen- 
sible a  few  minutes,  and  said  to  me,  knowing 
me  very  well,  '  Fm  in  a  burning  pain  all  within 
side  of  me,  Thady.'  I  could  not  speak,  but  my 
shister  asked  would  he  have  this  thing  or  t'other 
to  do  him  good?  'No,'  says  he,  'nothing  will 
do  me  good  no  more,'  and  he  gave  a  terrible 
screech  with  the  torture  he  was  in  ;  then  again 
a  minute's  ease,  'brought  to  this  by  drink,' 
says  he,  '  where  are  all  the  friends  ?  Where's 
Judy  ?  Gone,  eh  ?  Ay,  Sir  Condy  has  been  a 
fool  all  his  days,'  said  he  ;   and  that  was  tlio  last 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     39 

word  he  spoke,  and  died.     He  had  but  a  very 
poor  funeral  after  all/'  ^ 

In  Ennui  (1800)  Miss  Edgeworth  leaves  the 
tumultuous  life  of  the  Irish  squires,  who  neg- 
lect their  tenants  and  race  madly  to  ruin,  for 
characters  and  manners  of  another  sort  and  of  a 
somewhat  later  period.  The  Earl  of  Glenthorn 
is  the  hero,  a  great  nobleman,  possessed  of  es- 
tates in  both  England  and  Ireland.  Like  many 
an  Irish  absentee  he  was  English-bred,  and  had 
not,  since  childhood,  visited  his  Irish  home.  In 
the  Earl's  story  of  his  Irish  visit  —  doubtless  a 
making  over  of  Miss  Edgeworth's  own  first  im- 
pressions of  Ireland  —  in  the  picture  of  the  life 
of  a  great  landlord  in  a  remote  maritime  prov- 
ince of  Ireland  at  the  end  of  the  last  century, 
and  in  the  contrast  it  displays  between  the 
customs  of  an  English  estate,  English  tastes, 
English  prejudices,  and  English  decorums  with 
strange  Irish  ways,  lies  the  interest  of  the  book 
as  a  novel  of  manners. 

The  Earl  of  Glenthorn,  afflicted  with  ennui, 

determines,  as  a  last  resort,  to  try  to  cure  the 

malady   by   a   visit   to    Ireland.     The  cure   is 

efficacious  beyond  his  hopes,  for  he  finds  him- 

1  Castle  Backrent,  p.  C3. 


40  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

self  to  be,  not  the  Earl  of  Glenthorn  at  all,  but 
the  child  of  a  poor  peasant  who  had  put  him, 
her  own  son,  in  the  cradle  of  the  rightful  heir, 
and  had  brought  up  the  real  earl,  now  a  black- 
smith, as  her  boy. 

The  Earl,  leaving  his  splendid  country  home 
in  England,  crosses  to  Dublin,  and  thence 
posts  down  through  the  heart  of  the  country, 
exposed  to  the  unknown  and  unaccustomed 
horrors  of  untidy  Irish  inns  and  indifferent 
food.  His  French  and  English  servants  fol- 
low, dismayed  at  the  unaccustomed  Irish  sights 
and  sounds,  and  dragged  helplessly  from  place 
to  place  in  crazy,  ramshackle  chaises  driven 
by  wild,  ragged  postilions  dressed  like  mad 
beggars. 

The  feudal  aspect  that  life  in  out-of-the-way 
corners  of  Ireland  retained  down  even  into  the 
nineteenth  century  is  admirably  presented  in 
the  Earl's  account  of  his  arrival  and  reception 
at  Glenthorn  Castle  :  — 


"  As  we  approached,  the  gateway  of  the  castle 
opened,  and  a  number  of  men,  who  appeared  to 
be  dwarfs  when  compared  to  the  height  of  the 
building,  came  out  with  torches  in  their  liands. 
Wy  their  bustle  and  the  vehemence  witli  which 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     41 

they  bawled  to  one  another,  one  might  have 
thoiiglit  that  the  whole  castle  was  in  flame  ;  but 
they  were  only  letting  clown  a  drawbridge.  As 
I  was  going  over  this  bridge  a  casement  win- 
dow opened  in  the  castle  ;  and  a  voice  which  I 
knew  to  be  Ellinor's  [his  faithful  old  nurse], 
exclaimed,  '  Mind  the  big  hole  in  the  middle  of 
the  bridge,  God  bless  Yee's  ! ' 

"I  passed  over  the  broken  bridge  and  through 
the  massive  gate,  under  an  arched  way,  at  the 
farthest  end  of  which  a  lamp  had  just  been 
lighted  ;  then  I  came  into  a  large  open  area, 
the  court  of  the  castle.  .  .  .  The  great  effect 
that  my  arrival  produced  upon  the  multitude  of 
servants  and  dependants  who  issued  from  the 
castle  gave  me  an  idea  of  my  own  consequence 
beyond  anything  which  I  had  ever  felt  in  Eng- 
land. These  people  seemed  '  born  for  my  use ' : 
the  officious  precipitation  with  which  they  ran 
to  and  fro  ;  the  style  in  which  they  addressed 
me  ;  some  crying,  '  Long  life  to  the  Earl  of 
Glenthorn  ; '  some  blessing  me  for  coming  to 
reign  over  them  ;  altogether  gave  more  the 
idea  of  vassals  than  of  tenants,  and  carried  my 
imagination  centuries  back  to  feudal  times.  "^ 

The  Absentee  (1812)  dwells  upon  the  unhappy 
effects  of  absenteeism,  both  upon  the  lords  of 
the  soil,  who  turn  their  backs  upon  their  homes, 
and  upon  the  tillers  of  the  soil,  who  are  left  to 
the  mercies  of  a  middleman.  The  illustration 
1  Ennui,  pp.  48-49. 


42  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

of  the  latter  as23ect  of  the  question  may  be  left 
to  the  novelists  of  the  peasantry.  In  the  first 
part  of  the  novel  some  light  is  thrown  upon  the 
footing  of  a  certain  class  of  Irish  absentees 
in  the  English  society  of  the  day.  Lord  Clon- 
brony,  the  head  of  an  absentee  family,  is  an 
absentee  under  protest,  constrained  to  leave 
Ireland  by  his  lady,  who  is  anxious  to  make 
a  place  for  herself  in  English  society.  Lord 
Clonbrony  was  somebody  in  Ireland,  and  in 
Dublin  a  person  of  consequence  ;  but  in  Eng- 
land he  finds  himself  a  nobody,  and  in  London 
a  cipher.  Looked  down  upon  by  the  fine  people 
whose  society  his  wife  is  assiduously  cultivat- 
ing, and  heartily  weary  of  them,  he  beats  a 
retreat  from  this  fashionable  set,  and  takes 
refuge  in  a  society  beneath  him  in  rank  and 
education,  but  where,  at  least,  he  is  received 
and  treated  as  an  equal.  The  satire  of  the  story 
(a  satire  not  without  its  mark  even  to-day)  is 
directed  against  Lady  Clonbrony,  who,  as  the 
representative  of  those  Irish  ladies  that  ape  the 
accent,  manner,  and  deportment  of  English 
women,  finds  herself  no  better  received  tlian  her 
husband,  ])ut,  with  less  pride,  refuses  to  be  re- 
pulsed  by  snubs  and    rebuffs.       With  infinite 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   GENTRY  43 

care  she  tries  to  change  her  Hibernian  accent  to 
an  English  one  ;  her  naturally  free,  open,  good- 
natured  and  precipitate  Irish  manner  she  en- 
deavors but  too  late  in  life  to  change  to  the  stiff, 
sober,  cold  demeanor  which  she  regards  as  Eng- 
lish. But  all  these  efforts  result  only  in  a 
mixture  of  constraint  and  affectation  that 
everywhere  expose  her  to  ridicule. 

By  a  series  of  splendid  entertainments  and 
by  untiring  devotion  to  social  duties  Lady 
Clonbrony  wins  the  uncertain  and  unsatisfac- 
tory success  of  being  barely  tolerated  in  a  set 
of  sufficient  social  altitude  to  gratify  her 
ambition.  But  unfortunately  this  precarious 
footing  is  not  to  be  maintained  :  her  extrava- 
gance has  brought  the  affairs  of  the  family  to 
a  dangerous  pass,  and  Lord  Clonbrony  finds 
himself  on  the  verge  of  ruin.  The  case  for  a 
return  to  Ireland  is  put  strongly  to  Lady  Clon- 
brony ;  old  faces  and  Irish  scenes  come  pleas- 
antly back  to  the  memory ;  the  slights  and 
mortifications  incident  to  her  present  way  of 
life  are  recalled  ;  the  English  women  of  fashion 
are  set  down  as  cold  and  heartless ;  the  motto, 
"One's  nobody  out  of  Lon'on,"  is  renounced  ; 
Lady  Clonbrony,  in  short,  consents  to  a  return  ; 


44  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

and  the  errant  lord  triumphantly  leads  home 
his  family  to  cherish  the  tenants  and  take  up 
all  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  a  resident 
and  improving  landlord. 

It  is  the  Protestant  gentry  who  have  thus 
far  appeared  in  Miss  Edge  worth's  novels. 
Ormond  (1817)  introduces  a  Catholic  gentle- 
man of  the  old  Celtic  stock. 

It  was  one  of  the  many  anomalies  of  Irish 
life  that  between  the  Protestant  landlords,  who 
were  generally  alien  in  blood  and  to  some 
degree  in  feeling,  and  their  Catholic  tenants 
a  warm  feudal  attachment  frequently  grew  up ; 
it  is  easy  then  to  conceive  to  what  fervor  this 
feudal  devotion  was  kindled  when  its  object 
was  one  of  their  own  race,  bred  up  in  their  own 
faith  and  traditions.  The  Cornelius  O'Shane  of 
Ormonde  in  whom  the  interest  of  the  story  as  a 
picture  of  Irish  life  centres,  is  a  Catliolic  pro- 
prietor who  attaches  to  himself  this  sort  of  love 
and  veneration. 

Cornelius  O'Shane's  estates  consist  of  a  num- 
ber of  islands  that  dot  a  spacious  lake,  the  Hhick 
IshT^uds;  of  this  realm  he  dubs  himself  tlie  king, 
and  is  saluted  by  liis  tenants  as  King  Corny. 
This  monarch  of  the  realm  of   a  ft^w  liuiidred 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     45 

acres  had  many  qualities  eminently  popular 
among  the  lower  Irish, —  lavish  hospitality,  a 
barbarous  profusion,  great  courage  and  spirit 
in  quarrels  or  affairs  of  honor,  and  in  his  deal- 
ings with  his  inferiors  a  tone  of  absolute 
authority  oddly  blended  in  daily  intercourse 
with  an  extreme  familiarity  of  manner.  He 
showed  besides  this  a  keen  insight  into  the 
character  of  his  dependants,  together  wdth  a 
sympathy  and  consideration  for  all  their 
customs  .and  prejudices.  His  indulgence  in 
the  management  of  his  property  was  another 
merit,  but  he  crowned  all  by  keeping  a  kitchen 
open  to  all  comers. 

The  allegiance  of  the  tenantry  to  their  mock 
monarch,  who  was  in  effect  king,  legislator, 
and  judge,  represents  the  free  and  cordial 
devotion  (owing  nothing  to  the  penal  laws 
that  strengthened  the  hand  of  the  Protestant 
landlords  while  they  cooled  the  affection  of  the 
peasantry)  which  went  out  to  a  proprietor  of 
the  old  blood  and  the  old  faith. 

The  character  of  King  Corny  and  the  social 
conditions  under  w^hich  he  lived  are  graphically 
depicted  by  Miss  Edgeworth,  and  make  one  of 
the  most  curious  and  pleasing  passages  in  her 


46  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

novels  considered  as  studies  of  manners.  King 
Corny  going  to  the  hunt  with  hound  and  horn, 
followed  by  all  who  could  ride,  and  by  the  shouts 
of  a  rabble  rout  of  idle  tenants  and  ragged  peas- 
ant boys  keen  for  the  sport;  King  Corny  in  his 
home,  petting  or  scolding  the  little  gossoons, 
chatting  familiarly,  and  cracking  his  joke  with 
his  tenants ;  or  on  evenings  of  genial  merriment 
over  the  punch-bowl  and  pipe  in  company  with 
Father  Jos,  the  parish  priest  —  such  are  some 
of  the  quaint  pictures  of  the  king  of  the  Black 
Islands,  a  type  of  the  Catholic  country  gentle- 
man, who,  in  spite  of  confiscations  and  dis- 
coverers, still  clung  to  his  estate,  and  lived 
in  the  unambitious  seclusion  which  the  penal 
laws  made  inevitable. 

Lady  Morgan  (Miss  Sydney  Owenson),  whose 
St.  Olair^  or  The  Heiress  of  Desmond  (1804)  was 
the  first  Irish  novel  to  appear  after  IVIiss  Edge- 
worth's  Castle  Hackrent^  was  by  birth,  social 
and  domestic  experiences,  and  by  her  tempera- 
ment, in  strong  contrast  to  her  predecessor. 
She  was  the  daugliter  of  an  impecunious  Dublin 
actor,  and  was  born  in  Dublin  in  1777  (?). 
The  shrewdness  and  self-reliance  which  the 
shifts  and  expedients  of  her  early  life  with  her 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   GENTRY  47 

father  bred  in  her,  joined  with  good  looks, 
gayety,  and  accomplishments  —  for  she  sang, 
played  upon  the  harp,  and  was  early  the  author 
of  romances,  —  enabled  her  to  take  a  prominent 
place  in  the  literary  and  social  life  of  Dublin. 
Her  celebrity  brought  her  to  the  notice  of  the 
Earl  and  Countess  of  Abercorn,  of  whose  house- 
hold she  was  invited  to  become  a  permanent 
member.  It  was  here  that  she  met  and  married 
the  Earl's  physician.  Sir  T.  C.  Morgan,  aban- 
doned Bohemia,  and  became  eventually  a  con- 
spicuous figure  in  the  life  of  Belgravia. 

The  extravagance  of  her  youth,  her  uncon- 
ventional sayings  and  doings  in  Dublin  and 
London  society,  her  books,  her  spirited  paper 
wars  against  hostile  critics,  and  the  eccentrici- 
ties of  her  later  years,  when,  be-w4gged,  painted, 
and  strangely  clad  in  the  gayest  habiliments, 
she  was  jocularly  known  as  "  Mamma  Morgan," 
kept  her  constantly  before  the  public  eye,  and 
provided  the  Dublin  wags  with  abundance  of 
material  upon  which  to  exercise  their  wits. 

In  her  attitude  toward  Irish  life  Lady  Mor- 
gan was  again  in  contrast  to  INIiss  Edgeworth. 
The  latter  looked  for  no  radical  change  in  the 
existing  system,  seeking  indeed  to  reform  the 


48  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

follies  and  vices  of  her  compatriots,  but  with- 
out ever  attacking  the  roots  of  the  difficulty, 
which  always  struck  down  into  political  and 
religious  conditions.  It  was  at  just  these  points, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  Lady  Morgan  made  her 
attack.  Her  books  are  a  sign  of  the  growth 
of  a  broader  spirit  of  Irish  nationality,  and  re- 
flect the  growing  interest  in  Irish  history  and 
antiquities  which  went  along  with  this. 

Lady  Morgan's  ncJvels,  though  on  the  whole 
of  slight  importance,  nevertheless  give  illustra- 
tions of  the  working  of  the  penal  laws,  of  the 
place  of  the  Volunteers  in  social  life,  of  the 
plots  of  the  United  Irishmen,  and  of  what  she 
calls  the  "desk  aristocracy"  that  sprang  up  just 
before  the  Rebellion.  Her  first  two  novels,  St. 
Clair^  or  The  Heiress  of  Desmond  (1804),  and 
The  Wild  Irish  Grirl  (1806),  are  merely  an  expres- 
sion of  the  growing  interest  in  L-eland's  past, 
which  at  the  same  period  inspired  a  band  of  his- 
torical students  in  and  out  of  Trinity  College, 
and  a  band  of  Celtic  scholars  out  of  Trinity, 
who,  in  a  labor  of  love,  strove  to  make  known 
to  the  world  the  imaginative  work  of  the  Celtic 
Irish  past.  St.  Clair,  in  sentiment  and  situation 
a  weak  imitation  of  Werter,  introduces  an  Irish 


THE  NOVELISTS   OF  THE   GENTRY  49 

antiquary  who  discourses  upon  local  legends 
and  traditions,  ancient  Irish  manuscripts  and 
Celtic  history,  poetry,  and  music.  The  Wild 
Irish  Girl^  with  its  glimpses  of  the  past,  was  in 
its  way  a  surprise  and  revelation  to  the  romance 
readers  of  the  time,  who  knew  nothing  of  the 
Irish  customs  of  other  days.  As  a  romance  it 
is  a  love  story  of  gushing  sentiment,  not  at  all 
a  "  rattling  Hibernian  tale,"  as  a  recent  literary 
historian,  content  perhaps  to  judge  by  the  title 
page,  describes  it.  The  "prince"  of  Insmore, 
the  father  of  the  ethereal  heroine  Glorvina  and 
the  last  of  a  line  of  princely  Milesians  who  once 
owned  the  whole  barony,  is  now  master  of 
but  a  few  barren  acres  and  the  tumble-down 
castle  of  Insmore  that  stands  in  their  midst. 
Here  the  old  prince,  in  an  absurdly  theatrical 
mockery  of  mediieval  state,  presents  the  past  in 
the  present  by  retaining  at  the  opening  of  the 
nineteenth  century  the  customs  and  dress  of  his 
ancestors.  Draped  and  decorated  in  the  an- 
tique fashion,  he  strides  majestically  about  his 
narrow  realm  like  a  chieftain  of  old.  The 
senachie  regales  him  with  tales  of  his  ancestors  ; 
the  harper  harps  in  the  hall ;  the  steward  re- 
spectfully receives  his  commands  ;  the  chaplain 


50  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

daily  celebrates  mass  in  the  dilapidated  chapel, 
and  all  the  servants  and  tenants  keep  up  the 
semblance  of  old  vassalage.  While  this  goes 
on  the  personages  expatiate  upon  ancient  Irish 
history,  legend,  music,  ornaments,  weapons,  and 
costume,  and  Glorvina  reads  Ossian,  and  sings 
old  Irish  airs  to  her  own  accompaniment  upon 
the  harp. 

In  O'Donnell  (1814)  Lady  Morgan  protests 
against  the  penal  laws,  and  the  chains  of  the 
shackled  Catholics  are  loudly  clanked  to  excite 
sympathy.  The  hero,  O'Donnell,  a  young  man 
of  a  noble  and  ancient  Catholic  family,  is  left 
fatherless  and  penniless.  He  is  confronted  at 
once  with  the  problem  of  education.  It  was 
against  the  law  for  an  Irish  Catholic  to  go  to 
school.  He  was  too  poor  to  go  to  France  or 
elsewhere,  as  well-to-do  Catholics  were  wont. 
The  problem  is  finally  solved  by  tlie  arrival 
in  Ireland  of  an  old  relative  of  O'Donnell's, 
a  priest  who  had  distinguished  himself  as  a 
churchman  and  diplomat  in  Spain,  whither  he 
had  gone  when  the  persecution  of  Irish  priests 
was  hottest  at  home.  This  accomplished  old 
man  had  come  to  spend  the  evening  of  his  life 
in   his   native   place,  and   he    undertakes    the 


THE   NOVELISTS  OF  THE   GENTRY  51 

education  of  his  young  kinsman.  The  educa- 
tional problem  solved,  the  question  of  a  career 
for  the  young  O'Donnell  comes  next.  His  taste 
is  all  for  soldiering  ;  but  the  penal  laws  forbade 
Irish  Catholics  to  serve  their  king  as  officers. 
He  has  therefore  to  look  elsewhere.  He  first 
takes  a  commission  in  the  Austrian  army. 
Later,  as  an  officer  in  the  Irish  brigade,  he 
fights  for  monarchy  and  his  royal  patroness, 
Marie  Antoinette,  against  the  Revolutionists. 
Florence  Macarthy  combines  political  satire 
with  a  romantic  love  tale.  In  writing  the 
political  satire  Lady  Morgan  incidentally  broke 
a  lance  upon  John  Wilson  Croker,  who  had 
attacked  her  with  coarse  malignity  in  Frasers  ; 
and  she  caricatures  him  in  the  Con  Crawley 
of  the  novel.  Throughout  the  book  she  satir- 
izes with  all  the  vehemence  at  her  command 
the  ''  aristocracy  of  the  bureau,"  those  who  had 
obtained  government  places  as  men  who,  in  the 
dangerous  years  that  closed  the  eighteenth  and 
opened  the  nineteenth  century,  had  demonstrated 
their  loyalty  as  informers,  as  fomenters  and 
suppressors  of  conspiracy,  as  tyrannical  magis- 
trates, or  as  legal  scavengers  ready  for  work 
too  dirty  for  the  hands  of  crown  lawyers,  and 


52  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

eager  to  serve  the  government,  wrong  or 
right. 

Darby  Crawley,  as  one  of  the  "  desk  aristoc- 
racy," is  the  target  for  most  of  the  satire. 
Vulgar,  low-born,  and  low-bred,  he  began  life 
as  an  attorney's  clerk.  As  he  contrived  to 
convince  the  government  that  he  was  ready  for 
anything,  good  or  bad,  if  only  it  was  remuner- 
ative, success  followed.  He  soon  found  him- 
self in  line  for  government  favor,  became 
crown  solicitor,  county  treasurer,  magistrate, 
commander  of  an  Orange  Yeomanry  Corps,  and 
agent  for  the  estate  of  a  great  absentee  lord. 
Wealth  flowed  in  upon  him  ;  he  became  a  man 
of  influence  and  consideration,  with  strings  of 
dependants,  a  great  villa  in  the  country,  and  a 
fine  establishment  in  Dublin.  In  character 
Darby  is  a  mean  self-seeker,  who  overlays 
cruelty  and  creeping  cunning  with  a  broad 
native  humor  and  drollery  that  blind  some  to 
his  real  nature,  and  disarm  the  contempt  of 
others   who   see  through   him. 

The  principal  events  of  The  O'Briens  and 
0' Flaherty 8^  the  best  of  Lady  Morgari's  na- 
tional talcs,  fall  between  the  year  IT!)3  and 
the    Rebellion  of    '98.     The    novel    was    pub- 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     53 

lished  in  1827,  Avlien  O'Connell  had  brought  tlie 
Irish  question  into  prominence  with  the  public 
and  with  Parliament.  The  timely  appearance 
of  the  book  sent  it  through  three  editions  in  the 
first  year.  The  novel  is  first  a  story  of  the  ac- 
tivities of  the  patriots  as  they  drift  in  a  steady 
undercurrent  to  the  Rebellion. 
'  The  young  hero,  Murrogh  O'Brien,  a  repre- 
sentative patriot,  is,  at  the  opening  of  the 
novel,  a  Trinity  College  student.  The  story 
gives  a  glimpse  of  Trinity  College  life  in  the 
last  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Two 
sets  of  students  Avere  in  evidence  in  those  days. 
The  one  set  consisted  for  the  most  part  of  the 
sons  of  the  nobility  and  gentry  fresh  from  their 
homes  in  the  country,  now  turned  loose  upon 
the  town,  and  bent  on  enjoying  it.  They  were 
jealous  supporters  of  the  principles  of  Ascend- 
ency—  students  of  the  type  best  depicted  by 
Lever,  roisterers  who  were  never  so  happy  as  in 
breaking  the  king's  peace,  beating  the  watch, 
starting  a  street  fight,  or  joining  in  a  tavern 
brawl.  The  other  set  of  students  were  of  a 
serious  bent,  ardent  patriots,  striving  to  find  a 
way  to  realize  their  hopes  for  the  freedom  and 
happiness  of  Ireland,  and  bending  their  energies 


54  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

toward  a  solution  of  questions  that  clamored 
for  immediate  attention. 

O'Brien  was  of  this  second  set.  He  was  a 
fiery  champion  of  Catholic  freedom  and  parlia- 
mentary reform,  which  he  boldl}^  defended  with 
tongue  and  pen,  as  speaker  and  political  pam- 
phleteer. He  was  also  a  leader  in  the  Histor- 
ical Society,  which,  in  its  origin  merely  a 
college  debating  club,  became  eventually  a 
training-school  for  patriots.  A  society,  voic- 
ing, as  did  this,  the  most  radical  views,  of 
course  clashed  with  the  University  authorities, 
who  were  mostly  imbued  with  the  narrowest 
bigotries  of  their  class  and  creed,  and  was  sup- 
pressed. The  expulsion  of  O'Brien  and  other 
leaders  followed,  and  this  expulsion  was  the 
first  important  step  in  the  young  patriot's 
career,  an  experience  he  shared  with  Robert 
Emmet,  for  example,  and  other  fiery  and  out- 
spoken lovers  of  their  land. 

—  Of  course  as  a  patriot  O'Brien  was  a  member 
of  the  Volunteers,  a  captain  in  the  self-organized 
national  army,  which,  in  1782,  when  England 
was  harassed  by  enemies,  backed  Ireland's 
demand  for  a  Parliament  free  from  English 
control.     He  was  also  a  member  of  the  United 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     66 

Irishmen,  as,  of  course,  the  typical  patriot  must 
needs  have  been.  '  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald 
(Lord  Walter  Fitzwalter  is  the  name  given  to 
him)  plays  a  part  in  the  story.  He  is  a  college 
friend  of  O'Brien's.  It  is  he  who  persuades 
him  to  become  a  United  Irishman,  and  brings 
him  to  the  councils  of  Rowan,  Wolfe  Tone,  Nap- 
per  Tandy,  and  others  of  revolutionary  fame. 
This  story  passes  over  the  days  of  the  Rebel- 
lion itself,  and  tells  in  a  hasty  conclusion  how 
O'Brien  played  his  part  in  the  uprising,  finally 
escaped  to  France,  and  became  one  of  Bona- 
parte's generals. 

Thomas  Colley  Grattan  (1792-1864),  and 
Charles  Robert  Maturin  (1782-1824)  worked 
in  small  measure  the  vein  which  Miss  Edge- 
worth  and  Lady  Morgan  opened.  In  Grattan's 
"The  Priest  and  the  Garde-du-Corps " ^  the 
Irish  Catholic  gentleman  and  the  penal  laws 
confront  each  other.  Unwilling  to  be  ground 
under  the  wheels  of  the  code,  the  Catholic  hero 
seeks  a  career  in  the  French  army,  and  becomes 
an  officer  in  the  body-guard  of  Marie  Antoi- 
nette. Contact  with  French  scepticism  results 
in  his  abandonment  of  the  creed  of  his  church. 
1  Highways  and  Byways. 


50  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

Eventually  lie  returns  to  Ireland.  The  code 
is  still  in  effect.  By  renouncing  the  Koman 
creed  in  form,  as  he  has  done  in  fact,  he  might 
secure  immunity  from  the  disabilities  and 
persecution  under  which  the  Papists  labored  ; 
but  unwilling  to  lay  himself  open  to  the 
natural  implication  that  his  apostasy  was  the 
act  of  a  timid,  prudential  turncoat,  he  resolved 
to  stand  by  the  faith.  He  therefore  makes  it 
a  point  of  honor  to  maintain  an  outward 
adherence  to  a  church  whose  faith  he  has 
discarded. 

Maturin,  in  his  day  a  figure  of  considerable 
proportions  as  novelist  and  dramatist,  though 
now  but  a  name,  was  an  eccentric  whose  oddi- 
ties added  to  the  gayety  of  the  capital.  He  was 
a  clergyman  of  the  Irish  Establishment,  a  pop- 
ular preacher  and  controversialist,  all  his  life  the 
sworn  enemy  of  two  redoubtable  antagonists, 
Romanism  and  Calvinism,  the  one  of  which  he 
attacked  as  at  war  with  reason,  the  other  as 
the  most  cruel  and  mournful  of  theologies. 

His  strange  freaks  led  people  to  think  him 
mad  with  the  madness  allied  to  genius.  He 
took  himself  very  seriously  as  an  author. 
During  the  throes  of  composition   it  was    his 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     57 

custom  to  paste  a  red  wafer  over  his  brow  to 
warn  his  household  that  the  creative  process 
was  going  on  and  must  not  be  interrupted.  In 
Woman^  or  Pour  et  Contre  (1818)  Maturin 
attempts,  for  once,  to  attend  to  an  actual  phase 
of  Irish  life  —  the  life  of  the  Methodists. 

The  story  gives  Maturin's  notion  of  the 
working  effects  of  Methodism  upon  those  who 
professed  it.  A  clergyman  of  the  Establishment, 
he  treats  his  subject,  if  not  with  unfairness,  at 
least  with  professional  rigor.  All  that  could 
be  attributed  to  these  dissenters  in  the  way  of 
narrow  prejudice  and  limited  views,  distrust  of 
literature,  art,  and  harmless  amusements,  cant, 
hypocrisy,  and  morbid,  dreary  religiosity  is 
brought  out  in  full  relief.  The  dissenters  of 
this  novel  are  far  from  engaging  either  in  their 
doctrines  or  their  social  life.  Exposed  to  the 
scorn  of  the  Establishment  and  of  Catholicism, 
they  present  a  sullen  and  forbidding  front  to 
their  enemies.  This  book  does  full  justice  to 
that  side  of  dissent  which  Irishmen  of  the 
Established  Church  and  Irish  Catholics  found 
ridiculous,  repellent,  and  contemptible. 

No  one  of  the  Irish  novelists  is  more  imbued 
with  the  gay,  frank,  companionable  spirit  of  his 


58  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

class  than  William  Hamilton  Maxwell  (1792- 
1850).  Though  of  an  Ulster  family,  he  lived 
much  in  the  west,  and  for  the  material  of  his 
stories  turned  almost  entirely  to  Connaught. 
His  natural  bent  was  for  soldiering,  but  under 
strong  family  pressure,  and  on  the  promise  of 
an  elderly  relative  to  make  him  her  heir  on  the 
condition  of  his  taking  the  church  for  a  pro- 
fession, he  finally  consented  to  give  up  the 
army  and  become  a  clergyman.  He  settled  at 
Balla,  a  town  in  the  far  west  of  Ireland,  where 
game  was  abundant  and  parishioners  scarce. 
It  was  in  the  west  that  he  and  Charles  Lever 
met  and  became  boon  companions.  As  a  de- 
voted sportsman  and  as  an  author.  Maxwell 
passed  his  time  pleasantly  enough,  dividing 
his  attention  between  field  sports  and  writing, 
until  deprived  of  his  living  for  non-residence. 
He  is  an  admirable  example  of  the  sporting 
parson  of  a  type  that  was  dying  fast  at  tlie  end 
of  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteentli  century. 
Besides  his  best  works,  which  will  be  noticed 
in  connection  with  Lever's  stories  of  life  in  the 
west.  Maxwell  is  the  autlior  of  two  historical 
novels,  O'Hara.or  179S  (1825)  and  The  Bark 
Lady  of  Doona  (11836). 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     69 

O'Hara^  a  picture  of  the  Rebellion  in  the 
north,  is  the  story  of  a  Protestant  gentleman  of 
that  province,  an  owner  of  large  estates,  who 
casts  in  his  lot  with  the  United  Irishmen.  The 
government  attaints  him  of  treason,  he  is  tried 
by  a  jury  of  drunken  bigots,  and  hanged  as  a 
traitor.  After  his  father's  death  the  hero  takes 
up  his  father's  work,  and  throws  himself  heart 
and  soul  into  the  Rebellion.  The  interest  of 
the  book  centres  in  the  accounts  of  the  fight- 
ing in  the  north.  The  hero  is  a  leader  of  the 
rebels  in  the  attack  on  Antrim.  The  book 
throws  some  light  on  the  nature  of  the  friction 
between  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  com- 
manders, the  bigotries  that  continually  threat- 
ened the  solidarity  of  the  rebel  forces,  and  the 
tact  and  patience  needed  to  keep  the  allies  on 
friendly  terms. 

The  Dark  Lady  of  Doona^  a  weak,  historical 
novel  in  Scott's  manner,  attempts  a  picture  of 
sixteenth-century  Irish  life,  and  takes  for  a 
heroine  Grace  O'Malley,  an  Amazonian  Irish 
lady,  known  to  history,  and  once  a  visitor  at 
Elizabeth's  court. 

Charles  James  Lever,  a  close  friend  of  Max- 
well's, born  in  Dublin  in  1806,  was  the  son  of  a 


60  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

Dublin  architect  of  English  descent.  His  life 
was  varied,  if  not  adventurous.  He  graduated 
from  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  and  later  took 
the  degree  of  bachelor  of  medicine  at  Gottingen. 
Sometime  before  1832  he  visited  America,  and 
with  a  strange  whim  for  a  wild  life  settled  him- 
self among  the  Indians,  and  was  admitted,  it  is 
said,  to  tribal  privileges,  ingratiating  himself 
so  successfully  with  his  savage  friends  that  he 
could  only  escape  from  them  by  a  strategy.  Re- 
turning to  Ireland,  he  studied  medicine,  and  in 
the  cholera  outbreak  of  1832  was  appointed  to 
a  district  of  which  Kilrush  in  Galway  was  the 
headquarters,  where  he  did  his  duty  coura- 
geously among  the  stricken  peasantry.  It 
was  at  Kilrush  that  Lorreqiier  was  begun. 
There  also  he  met  William  Hamilton  Maxwell. 
They  were  birds  of  a  feather,  and  amused  them- 
selves by  concocting  elaborate  and  successful 
practical  jokes  upon  their  acquaintances.  It  is 
said  that  Maxwell's  example  encouraged  Lever's 
habits  of  extravagance,  and  taught  him  the 
fear  of  duns  and  bailiffs.  Later  he  moved  into 
Ulster  and  practised  medicine  around  Coleraine 
and  Newtown-Limavady.  As  lie  liad  spent 
vacations  in  the  south,  ho  was  llius  early  more 


THE  NOVELISTS   OF   THE   GENTRY  01 

or  less  acquainted  with  the  four  provinces  of 
Ireland.  He  left  the  north  for  Brussels,  wliere 
he  acted  as  physician  to  the  embassy,  though 
never  formally  appointed.  In  Brussels  Lorre- 
quer  was  completed,  and  0'3Ialleij  and  Hinton 
begun  and  finished.  The  success  of  these 
books  led  to  the  offer  of  the  editorship  of  the 
Dublin  University  Magazine^  which  Lever  ac- 
cepted in  1842,  and  held  for  three  years. 

At  this  time  Lever  is  described  as  a  man 
of  powerful  frame,  full-bodied,  and  impressing 
every  one  with  a  sense  of  health  and  physi- 
cal completeness.  He  was  hearty,  laughter- 
lo\dng,  impulsive,  full  of  dash  and  go  to  the 
highest  possible  pitch,  with  unflagging  animal 
spirits  and  an  endless  flood  of  wit  and  mirth. 
Out  of  this  robust  health  and  sanguine  temper- 
ament grew  his  easy-going  philosophy  of  life. 

To  know  Lever  as  he  was  during  the  three 
years  of  his  editorship  of  the  magazine  is  to 
know  him  pretty  completely.  On  assuming  the 
editorship  he  established  himself  in  a  spacious 
house  near  Dublin,  and  gave  proof  of  his  conviv- 
ial tastes  by  dispensing  a  boundless  hospitality. 
At  his  table  the  brilliant  men  of  conservative 
Ireland    met    together,  —  statesmen,    men    of 


62  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

letters,  barristers,  artists,  churchmen,  or  any  one 
who  could  tell  a  good  story,  sing  a  good  song, 
or  play  good  whist.  Thackeray,  who  visited 
him  at  this  time,  said  he  had  met  no  such  col- 
lective agreeability  anywhere  else.  Lever's 
love  for  society  amounted  to  a  passion.  When 
deprived  of  it  he  could  only  chew  the  cud 
of  bitter  fancy.  He  loved  wit  and  fun,  and 
displayed  both  as  a  conversationalist.  Friends 
said  that  Lever  the  writer  was  nothing  to 
Lever  the  talker,  and  that  he  played  his  best 
role  before  that  best  of  audiences  —  the  audi- 
ence round  a  dinner-table.  The  wildest  stories 
circulated  in  Dublin  concerning  the  convivialities 
at  his  home.  They  were  gross  exaggerations  ; 
for  though  Lever  was  always  prone  to  cakes 
and  ale,  and  despite  the  thirsty  souls  who 
throng  his  novels,  he  himself  always  looked 
for  quality  rather  than  quantity  in  his  pota- 
tions. Thriftlessness  and  extravagance  were 
among  Lever's  failings.  After  honest  and  re- 
peated efforts  at  economy  he  abjured  it  entirely 
under  the  rooted  conviction  that  it  was  absolutely 
incompatible  with  his  disposition.  Besides  his 
passion  for  fun,  society,  and  conviviality  lie  had 
a  passion  for  play.     He  played  whist  witli  the 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     63 

greatest  enthusiasm  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave  ;  and  the  fact  that  he  lost  on  the  whole 
was  perhaps  due  to  his  way  of  keeping  up  a 
running  fire  of  jest  and  anecdote  all  through 
the  game.  Lever  had  also  a  passion  for  horses, 
and  his  taste  in  horse-flesh  was  fastidious.  In 
spite  of  thriftlessness  and  expensive  tastes,  and 
though  he  was  continually  in  debt,  he  seems 
always  to  have  paid  his  way  in  the  end. 

The  year  1845  put  an  end  to  his  Dublin  life. 
Dublin  was  no  place  just  then  for  triflers. 
Party  spirit  ran  high,  and  Lever's  good-humored 
tolerant  toryism  would  no  longer  pass  muster 
with  the  magazine.  He  found  himself  uncom- 
fortably between  the  points  of  mighty  opposites. 
Tory  journals  complained  of  his  lukewarm 
partisanship.  The  Young  Ireland  press  at- 
tacked him  with  a  point  and  pertinacity  that, 
as  he  said  himself,  often  left  him  "biting  his 
pen  for  hours."  It  regarded  him  as  a  buffoon 
novelist,  a  parodist  of  the  national  character, 
and  a  political  weakling.  The  splendid  sin- 
cerity of  the  Young  Irelanders,  though  it 
put  him  completely  out  of  countenance,  still 
appealed  to  him  and  turned  his  sympathies 
in   a    measure    outside    the    camp    where    he 


64  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

belonged.  Stung  by  criticisms  that  came  at 
him  like  hornets  from  every  side,  in  a  pique 
with  Ireland  and  the  Irish,  he  committed  the 
unpardonable  sin  of  his  fun-and-frolic  philos- 
ophy by  falling  into  ill  health  and  ill  hu- 
mor, and  resolved  to  leave  Ireland.  The  rest 
of  his  life  he  spent  wandering  about  the 
continent,  changing  his  residence  every  few 
years.  He  managed  to  live  in  the  best  society, 
playing  whist  and  roulette  wherever  he  went, 
and  dashing  off  at  intervals  a  three-volume 
novel,  when  debts  became  pressing  or  money 
was  needed  for  a  new  move.  Among  other 
places  he  lived  in  Carlsruhe,  Baden-Baden, 
Florence,  Spezzia  (where  he  held  a  sinecure 
position  as  vice-consul),  and  finally  at  Trieste, 
where  he  was  consul.  The  Trieste  appointment 
Lord  Derby  tendered  him  with  the  words, 
"Here  are  X600  a  year  for  doing  nothing;  and 
you.  Lever,  are  the  very  man  to  do  it."  Lever 
died  at  Trieste  in  1872.  Lever's  scheme  of  life 
involved  the  banishment  from  thought  and 
sight  of  the  disagreeable  and  serious,  the  enjoy- 
ment of  fun,  hilarity,  cheerful  company,  and 
the  best  of  food  and  drink.  In  many  ways 
he  is   a   fair  representative  of   a  certain   type 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     05 

of  Anglo-Irishman  of  the  Union  period.  On 
the  whole  his  temperament  and  physique  got 
for  him  as  much  enjoyment  from  the  eartliy 
things  that  make  the  world  pleasant  as  they 
can  afford,  and  few  men  have  laughed  and 
grown  fat  with  a  success  so  complete. 

Among  Lever's  novels  the  prime  old  favorites 
are  Harry  Lorrequer^  Charles  O'Malley^  and 
Jack  Hinton.  These  are  the  typical  rollick- 
ing novels,  the  noisiest  novels  ever  written,  in 
wdiich  uproar,  riotousness,  practical  joking, 
duelling,  inebriety,  and  assault  and  battery  reign 
supreme.  Pictures  of  town  life  and  life  in  the 
west  fill  a  good  part  of  these  stories.  Though 
the  actions  of  two  of  the  three  are  supposed  to 
fall  in  the  years  just  after  the  opening  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  their  spirit  and  the  aspect 
of  the  society  they  reflected  belong  to  pre- 
Union  days. 

The  hero  of  these  three  stories  is  pretty 
much  the  same  person  whether  he  is  called 
Harry  Lorrequer,  Charles  O'Malley,  or  Jack 
Hinton  (who  is  nominally  an  Englishman). 
This  hero  of  Lever's  is,  in  his  traits,  feelings, 
and  springs  of  action,  typical  of  the  young 
Irish  gentleman  soldier  of  an  earlier  day,  as  he 


66  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

was  or  wished  to  be  —  a  light-hearted,  buoyant, 
witty,  hair-brained  sort  of  fellow,  with  always 
a  gentlemanly,  well-bred  way  with  him  in 
spite  of  noisy,  half-swaggering  ways  ;  consider- 
ing scarce  any  sacrifice  too  great  to  secure  the 
gratification  of  the  moment,  or  a  moment's 
freedom  from  annoyance ;  with  a  wonderful 
capacity  of  enjoyment,  and  overflowing  with 
all  the  happiness  that  food,  drink,  and  physical 
well-being  can  afford.  It  is  with  the  eyes  of 
such  a  hero  that  life  and  society  in  town  and 
country  are  seen. 

When  Harry  Lorrequer,  the  hero  of  the  story 
of  that  name,  is  introduced,  he  is  settling  him- 
self in  barracks  at  Cork.  He  is  an  officer  in 
one  of  his  Majesty's  regiments  which  has  just 
returned  from  a  peninsular  campaign.  His 
account  of  the  way  he  and  his  brother  officers 
killed  time  in  Cork  will  suggest  the  kind  of 
town  life  Lever's  heroes  lead,  and  make  plain 
the  appropriateness  of  the  terms  "  rollicking '' 
and  "rattling"  so  generally  applied  to  these 
novels.     Lorrequer  writes  in  his  Confessions :  — 

"  We  were  soon  settled  in  barracks ;  and 
then  began  a  series  of  entertainments  on  the 
side  of  the  civic  dignitaries  of  Cork  which  soon 


THE  NOVELISTS   OF   THE   GENTRY  07 

led  most  of  us  to  believe  that  we  had  only  escaped 
shot  and  shell  to  fall  less  glorious  beneath  cham- 
]3agne  and  claret.  I  do  not  believe  there  is  a  coro- 
ner in  the  island  who  would  have  pronounced  but 
the  one  verdict  over  the  regiment,  "  Killed  by 
the  mayor  and  corporation,"  had  we  so  fallen. 

"  First  of  all,  we  were  dined  by  the  citizens 
of  Cork;  and  to  do  them  justice,  a  harder  drink- 
ing set  of  gentlemen  no  city  need  boast ;  then 
we  were  feasted  by  the  corporation,  then  by  the 
sheriffs,  then  came  the  mayor,  solus,  then  an 
address,  with  a  cold  collation,  that  left  eight  of 
us  on  the  sick  list  for  a  fortnight ;  but  the 
climax  of  all  was  a  grand  entertainment  given 
in  the  mansion-house,  to  which  upwards  of  two 
thousand  were  invited.  It  was  a  species  of 
fancy-dress  ball,  beginning  by  a  dejeuner  at 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  ending  —  I 
never  yet  met  the  man  who  could  tell  when  it 
ended.  .  .   . 

"  Such  was  our  life  in  Cork  —  dining,  drink- 
ing, dancing,  riding  steeplechases,  pigeon  shoot- 
ing, and  tandem  driving  —  filling  up  any  little 
interval  that  was  found  to  exist  between  a  late 
breakfast  and  the  time  to  dress  for  dinner  ;  and 
here  I  hope  I  shall  not  be  accused  of  a  tendency 
to  boasting,  when  I  add,  that  among  all  ranks 
and  degrees  of  men,  and  women  too,  there  never 
was  a  regiment  more  highly  in  estimation  than 
the  4-th.  We  felt  the  full  value  of  all  the 
attentions  we  were  receiving,  and  we  endeav- 
ored, as  best  we  might,  to  repay  them."  ^ 

^  Harry  Lorrequer,  ^-p.  2-7. 


68  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

A  military  friend  of  O'Malley's  tells,  in 
the  same  mess-room  vein,  quite  a  different 
story  of  life  in  the  northern  town  of  London- 
derry. 

The  narrator  begins  with  the  regiment's  en- 
try into  the  city.  Instead  of  the  admiring 
crowds  that  awaited  them  elsewhere  as  they 
marched  gayly  into  quarters,  they  see  nothing 
but  grave,  sober,  intelligent-looking  faces  that 
scrutinized  their  appearance  closely  enough,  but 
with  little  approval  and  less  enthusiasm.  The 
Derry  men  looked  and  passed  hurriedly  to  the 
counting-houses  and  wharfs  ;  the  women  peeped 
from  the  windows  with  almost  as  little  interest 
as  the  men,  and  walked  away  again.  In  vain 
the  officers  ogled  the  pretty  girls  as  they 
marched  along.  No  sly  glances  half-acknowl- 
edged their  admiring  gaze.  They  might  as 
well  have  wasted  their  blandishments  upon  the 
Presbyterian  meeting-houses  that  with  liigh- 
pitched  roofs  frowned  down  upon  them.  The 
officers  were  a  set  of  good  fellows,  bent  on  fun 
and  pleasure,  and  determined  to  add  their  share 
to  the  gayety  of  the  town.  Once  settled,  they 
opened  the  campaign  as  was  their  custom  :  they 
announced  garrison  balls  and   ])rivatc  theatri- 


THE   NOVELISTS  OF  THE   GENTRY  CO 

cals  ;  they  offered  a,  cup  to  ])e  run  for  in  the 
steeplechase  ;  turned  out  a  four-in-hiind  drac^, 
and  brought  over  two  boats  to  challenge  the 
north.  But  when  the  mayor  of  the  city  called 
on  the  colonel,  he  heard  the  plan  of  campaign 
with  an  expression  that  plainly  told  he  believed 
himself  in  questionable  company.  Undaunted 
by  this  chilly  official  welcome,  however,  the 
officers  made  vigorous  efforts  to  carry  out  the 
campaign.  But  the  men  of  Derry  were  ab- 
sorbed in  commerce,  and  did  not  respond  to 
their  efforts  ;  and  the  ladies  of  Derry  were  a 
perpetual  puzzle  to  these  veterans.  They 
thought  they  had  nothing  to  learn  where 
young  ladies  were  concerned ;  but  in  Derry 
they  faced  a  new  problem  in  the  "  serious " 
young  lady.  The  regimental  balls  were  scantly 
attended,  picnic  invitations  were  politely  de- 
clined, and  plays  were  performed  to  empty 
benches. 

In  the  face  of  such  difficulties  the  social 
campaign  was  perforce  abandoned,  and  gloom 
fell  upon  the  mess.  Some  took  to  brandy  and 
water  and  late  hours,  some  read  novels  and 
Byron,  and  others  cut  into  a  rubber  to  pass  an 
evening.     A  few  resourceful  fellows  adopted  a 


70  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

new  set  of  tactics,  and  started  flirtations  with 
the  serious  young  ladies  by  demurely  escorting 
them  to  meeting,  and  attending  soirees  of 
elders.  But  on  the  whole,  the  mess  voted  Lon- 
donderry a  bore  or  growled  out  its  criticisms,  — 
"Rather  Rum  Ones,"  "Droll  People  These," 
"The  Black  North,  by  Jove."  Both  officers 
and  men  looked  with  longing  eyes  to  the  south, 
or  to  glorious  Galway,  that  paradise  of  the  in- 
fantry, that  lay  off  to  the  Avest  of  the  Shannon. 
In  Charles  O'Malley  (1840)  and  Jack 
Hinton  (1843)  there  is  a  series  of  pictures  of 
life  in  Dublin,  the  Dublin  of  the  period  de- 
scribed in  the  song  :  — 

"  Oh  !  Dublin,  sure  there  is  no  doubtin', 
Beats  every  city  upon  the  smj. 
'Tis  there  you'll  hear  O'Connell  spoutin', 
And  Lady  Morgan  making  tay. 
And  'tis  the  capital  of  the  greatest  nation, 
With  finest  peasantry  on  a  fruitful  sod, 
Fighting  like  devils  for  conciliation, 
And  hating  each  other  for  the  love  of  God." 

O'Malley  tells  in  part  of  life  in  Trinity 
College,  Dublin.  Charles  O'Malley,  the  hero 
of  the  book,  born  and  bred  in  the  west,  has 
been  sent  to  Trinity  to  prepare  himself  for  the 
study    of    the    law.      Once    matricidated,    he 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     71 

promptly  sorts  with  tlie  wildest  set  in  college, 
who  spend  their  time  in  sports  and  racketing, 
and  are  always  on  the  verge  of  expulsion.  His 
quarters  in  the  evening,  he  confesses,  are  more 
like  the  mess  room  of  a  regiment  than  tlie 
chambers  of  a  collegian.  Reading  men  shunned 
the  building  where  he  resided  as  they  would 
the  plague.  Moustached  dragoons,  dashingly 
dressed  four-in-hand  men,  hunters  returning 
splashed  from  a  run  with  the  hounds,  were  the 
visitors  who  crossed  and  recrossed  his  thresh- 
old. This  is  O'Malley's  retrospect  of  his 
college  days  :  — 

"  Within  a  few  weeks  after  my  arrival  in 
town  I  had  become  a  matriculated  student  of 
the  university,  and  the  possessor  of  chambers 
within  its  walls,  in  conjunction  with  the  sage 
and  prudent  gentleman  I  have  introduced  to 
my  readers  in  the  last  chapter.  Had  my  inten- 
tions on  entering:  colleo^e  been  of  the  most 
studious  and  regular  kind,  the  companion  into 
whose  society  I  was  then  immediately  thrown 
would  have  quickly  dissipated  them.  He  voted 
morning  chapels  a  bore,  Greek  lectures  a  hum- 
bug, examinations  a  farce,  and  pronounced  the 
statute  book,  with  its  attendant  train  of  fines 
and  punishment,  an  'unclean  thing.'  .  .  . 
Under  Webber's  directions  there  was  no  hour 
of  the  day  that  hung  heavily  upon  our  hands  : 


72  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

we  rose  about  eleven,  and  breakfasted  ;  after 
which  succeeded  fencing,  sparring,  billiards,  or 
tennis  in  the  park  ;  about  three,  we  got  on  horse- 
back, and  either  cantered  in  the  Phrenix  or 
about  the  squares  till  visiting  time,  after  which 
we  made  our  calls,  and  then  dressed  for  dinner, 
which  we  never  thought  of  taking  at  commons, 
but  had  it  from  Morrison's  —  we  both  being 
reported  sick  in  the  dean's  list,  and  thereby 
exempt  from  the  meagre  fare  of  the  fellows' 
table.  In  the  evening  our  occupations  became 
still  more  pressing  ;  there  were  balls,  suppers, 
whist  parties,  rows  at  the  theatre,  shindies  in 
the  street,  devilled  drumsticks  at  Hayes's,  select 
oyster  parties  at  the  Carlingford  ;  in  fact,  every 
known  method  of  remaining  up  all  night,  and 
appearing  both  pale  and  penitent  the  following 
morning."  ^ 

These  tales  of  O'Malley's  college  life,  though 
quite  sufficiently  spirited  and  highly  colored, 
lack  the  genuine,  musty,  academic  atmosphere. 
It  is  for  that  reason,  perhaps,  that  the  mind  of 
Lever's  gentle  reader,  shadowed  by  a  doubt  as 
to  their  complete  truthfulness,  believes  no  more 
of  them  than  he  chooses. 

Jack  Hinton  opens  with  pictures  of  military 
and  fashionable  life  in  Dublin.  Hinton  re- 
ceives his  first  impressions  of  Dublin  society  on 

1  Charles  0' Mallei/,  pp.  To-Tl. 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     73 

the  evening  of  his  arrival,  when  he  is  summoned, 
late  in  the  night  as  it  is,  to  repair  to  the 
viceroy  with  his  credentials  and  despatches. 
It  is  the  occasion  of  a  Castle  dinner.  All  have 
left  save  a  few  of  the  late  sitters,  the  viceroy's 
particular  friends.  Ushered  into  the  dining 
room,  Hinton  finds  his  Excellency  still  seated 
over  the  wine,  surrounded  by  dignitaries  of 
church  and  state.  Presentations  over,  he  makes 
one  of  the  party,  and  is  at  once  struck  by  the 
contrast  between  the  English  life  to  which  he 
has  been  accustomed  and  the  scene  before  him, 
surprised  especially  to  note  the  hearty  unre- 
served participation  of  statesmen  and  members 
of  the  learned  professions  in  the  lighter  gayeties 
of  society,  their  complete  abandonment  to  them, 
and  the  bending  of  great  powers  to  make  social 
pleasures  brilliant  and  attractive.  Hinton  gives 
his  impressions  of  the  occasion  :  — 

"  Amid  a  shower  of  smart,  caustic,  and  witty 
sayings,  droll  stories,  retort,  and  repartee,  the 
wine  circulated  freely  from  hand  to  hand,  the 
presence  of  the  Duke  adding  fresh  impulse  to 
the  sallies  of  fun  and  merriment  around  him. 
Anecdotes  of  the  army,  the  bench,  and  the  bar 
poured  in  unceasingly,  accompanied  by  running 
commentaries  of  the  hearers,  who  never  let  slip 


74  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

an  opportunity  for  a  jest  or  a  rejoinder.  To  me 
the  most  singular  feature  of  all  this  was,  that 
no  one  seemed  too  old  or  too  dignified,  too  high 
in  station  or  too  venerable  from  office,  to  join 
in  this  headlong  current  of  conviviality  :  austere 
churchmen,  erudite  chief  justices,  profound  poli- 
ticians, privy  councillors,  military  officers  of 
high  rank  and  standing,  were  here  all  mixed 
up  together  into  one  strange  medley,  appar- 
ently bent  on  throwing  an  air  of  ridicule  over 
the  graver  business  of  life,  and  laughing  alike 
at  themselves  and  the  world.  Nothing  was  too 
grave  for  a  jest,  nothing  too  solemn  for  a  sar- 
casm. All  the  soldier's  experience  of  men  and 
manners,  all  the  lawyer's  acuteness  of  perception 
and  readiness  of  wit,  all  the  politician's  prac- 
tised tact  and  habitual  subtlety,  were  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  common  topics  of  the  day  with 
such  promptitude  and  such  power,  that  one 
knew  not  whether  to  be  more  struck  by  the 
mass  of  information  they  possessed,  or  by  that 
strange  fatality  which  could  make  men,  so  great 
and  so  gifted,  satisfied  to  jest  where  they  might 
be  called  on  to  judge."  ^ 

In  the  O'Briens  and  O'Flahertys  Lady  Mor- 
gan, picturing  Castle  society  some  twenty  years 
earlier,  in  the  vice-royalty  of  the  Duke  of 
Rutland,  gives  it  the  same  brilliant,  gay,  and 
careless  tone.     Tlie  following  scene,  for  example, 

1  Jack  Ilinton,  p.  13. 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     75 

would  not  seem  out  of  place  among  Ilinton's 
descriptions  of  Castle  life.  It  is  marked  by 
even  less  regard  for  viceregal  dignity  and 
decorum  than  Lever's  pictures.  A  castle  din- 
ner is  in  progress  when  the  news  of  an  alarm- 
ing street  riot  is  brought  in  :  — 

"  Just  as  the  lovely  vice-queen  and  her  bevy 
of  beauties  had  risen  from  table,  amidst  accla- 
mations much  too  loud  for  the  quietude  of 
modern  hoji  ton,  and  while  the  Under  Secre- 
tary whispered  the  news  to  the  Chief,  the  Chief 
passed  it  (with  the  bottle)  to  the  Chancellor, 
who  gave  it  to  the  Commander  of  the  Forces  ; 
and  the  Commander  communicated  it  without- 
note  or  comment  to  the  Lord  Lieutenant. 

"  The  board  then  proceeded  to  transact  busi- 
ness, and  the  members  of  his  Majesty's  Privy 
Council  filled  their  glasses,  and  gave  their  opin- 
ions. The  contents  of  many  wise  heads  and  many 
bright  flasks  were  now  poured  forth  together. 
More  troops  were  ordered  out,  and  more  wine 
was  ordered  up.  The  state  butler  and  the  first 
aide-de-camp  were  kept  in  perpetual  activity. 
The  wine  was  declared  prime  and  the  times 
perilous.  The  disbanding  of  the  Volunteers, 
and  the  knighting  of  Ferns,i  were  orders  car- 
ried in  council  without  a  dissenting  voice. 
The  policy  of  elevating  some  to  the  peerage, 
and  others  to  the  gallows,  was  then  started  by 
Lord   Knocklofty,  whose    family    had   progres- 

1 A  Dublin  wine  merchant. 


76  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

sively  prospered  by  such  measures;  and  it  was 
agreed  to  by  the  Lord  Chancellor,^  with  a  com- 
ment on  the  propriety  of  exterminating  all  the 
Catholics  (one  of  his  Lordship's  most  favorite 
schemes)."^ 

The  meeting  of  the  Privy  Council  over,  there 
follows  the  progress  of  the  representative  of 
royalty  from  the  dining  room  to  the  drawing- 
room  :  — 

"  At  this  moment  a  little  page  entering  the 
room  cried  out  in  a  fluttered  voice,  '  The  Lord 
Lieutenant  ! '  while  the  aide-de-camp  on  service, 
opening  another  door,  the  dinner  party  (those 
at  least  who,  at  an  earlier  hour,  had  not  left  the 
table,  gone  home,  or  remained  under  it)  came 
forth.  They  entered  the  drawing-room  with  a 
burst  of  noise  and  laugliter.  The  Duke  mean- 
time hurried  joyously  but  not  very  steadily  on, 
followed  by  his  merry  court;  his  eyes  sparkling, 
his  cheek  flushed,  and  his  hair  disorderetl, 
beauty  and  inebriety  combining  to  give  liis  flne 
person  the  air  of  the  youthful  Bacchus.  It  was 
in  vain  that  his  Privy  Council  endeavored  to 
look  as  sober  as  their  calling.  The  Keeper  of 
the  Seals  could  not  keep  his  legs  ;  the  Attorney 
General  was  served  with  a  noli  prosequi;  the 
Speaker    could    not    articulate   a    syllable,  and 

1  John  Fitz.ijibbon,  Earl  of  Clare. 

a  O'Briens  and  O'Flahertys,  Vol.  I,  p.  177. 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE   GENTRY  77 

the  King's  Solicitor  suffered  judgment  to  go  by 
default."! 

Lever  gives  considerable  attention  in  his 
novels  to  the  social  campaigns  of  vulgar  up- 
starts in  Dublin.  The  best  of  the  manners 
painting  in  this  kind  is  that  of  the  Rooneys  in 
Jac1c  Hinton.  Mr.  Paul  Rooney  was  a  la^vyer 
of  plebeian  origin,  who  had  grown  rich  in  his 
profession.  His  highest  ambition  was  to  out- 
shine in  the  splendor  of  his  entertainments  all 
the  entertainers  of  Dublin.  He  loved  beyond 
everything  to  play  the  host  to  great  people. 
The  great  and  titled  found  in  him  a  merry  fel- 
low, whose  dinners  they  honored  with  their 
presence,  ministering  to  the  host's  vanity  as 
they  sipped  his  choice  claret  and  Burgundy. 

Lever  loved  to  describe  social  functions, 
and  no  such  description  surpasses  that  of  the 
Rooneys'  great  ball;  he  catches  the  festive 
spirit  with  all  the  sights  and  sounds  of  the 
occasion,  —  the  crashing  of  plates  and  fiddles, 
the  popping  of  corks,  the  dancing  feet,  the 
scraps  of  jest,  gossip,  and  flirtation  that  reach 
the  ear  in  the  intervals  of  the  mixed  tumult  of 

'^Ibid.,  p.  178. 


78  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

music  and  sociability.  This  entertainment  of 
the  Rooneys  is  the  scene  of  an  escapade  of  the 
jovial  viceroy's,  the  same  who  presided  at  the 
dinner  which  gave  Hinton  his  first  glimpse  of 
Dublin  society.  The  Duke's  aides  had  aroused 
his  grace's  curiosity  by  glowing  descriptions  of 
the  splendor  of  Rooney's  social  functions,  and 
urged  him  to  attend  and  see  for  himself.  In  a 
spirit  of  frolic  he  consented  to  look  in  "  just  for 
a  moment,"  and  the  Duke  and  his  aides,  with  an 
escort  of  dragoons,  clatter  off  to  the  Rooney 
mansion.  Once  there  the  Duke  becomes  so 
interested  in  the  Rooneys'  wine  and  company 
that  he  remains  till  dayliglit.  One  of  the  aides, 
Phil  O'Grady,  remarking  the  Duke's  high 
spirits,  resolves  to  turn  them  to  his  own  ac- 
count. O'Grady  needs  money,  and  the  cham- 
pagne inspires  him  with  the  plan  of  prevailing 
upon  the  viceroy  to  exercise  his  prerogative  and 
knight  Paul  Rooney  on  the  spot.  This  will 
delight  Rooney  and  open  his  purse  for  a  heavy 
loan.  He  suggests  the  idea  to  the  Duke,  who, 
leaning  unsteadily  against  the  banister,  de- 
clares that  nothing  could  be  better,  and  calls 
for  a  sword  with  which  to  go  through  the  cere- 
mony.    The  sword  is  found,  unhappily,  before 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     79 

Rooney  himself.  Tlie  Duke  is  impatient  to 
knight  somebody  at  once.  O'Grady's  old  ser- 
vant, cross  Corny  Delany,  happens  to  be  at 
hand,  and  the  Duke,  ordering  him  to  his  knees 

and  asking  what  his    d d   name   is,  grasps 

the  sword,  and  slaps  it  heartily,  not  upon  the 
shoulder,  but  upon  his  bald  head,  crying  out  at 
the  same  moment  in  the  usual  formula  for  the 
occasion,  "Rise,  Sir  Corny  Delany." 

After  this  the  Duke  takes  his  leave,  and  as 
he  steps  out  sees  a  picket  of  dragoons  bivouack- 
ing in  the  middle  of  the  street.  This  is  his  guard 
of  honor  which  he  had  forgotten  to  dismiss  on 
entering,  and  he  retires  with  the  pleasant  con- 
sciousness that  his  evening's  adventures  will 
furnish  matter  for  every  caricature  shop  in  the 
capital. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  Lever's  pictures 
of  the  viceregal  court,  this  story  of  the  knight- 
ing of  Corny  is  very  like  an  actual  occurrence, 
that  in  which  the  Duke  of  Rutland,  in  a  frolic, 
knighted  a  jolly  innkeeper. 

Lever  and  Maxwell  are  the  novelists  of  the 
men  and  manners  of  Connaught,  and  in  the 
pictures  of  life  in  the  west  of  Ireland  are  at 
their  best.      Connaught  was  the    province    of 


80  IRISH  LIFE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 

Ireland  notable  above  others  for  the  most  star- 
tling traditions  of  society.  It  was  the  home  of 
the  "  ould,  ancient  families,"  the  O'Shaugh- 
nesseys,  the  McDermots,  the  Bodkins,  the 
Blakes,  and  the  Brady s.  Here,  too,  the  old 
Irisliry  took  refuge  from  the  persecuting  hands 
of  the  heretics  of  the  black  north  when  their 
cabins  were  placarded  with  the  dread  notice 
"  To  Hell  or  Connaught."  It  was  the  paradise 
of  the  sportsman,  a  fine  hunting  country  abound- 
ing in  lakes  and  streams  well  stocked  with 
trout  and  salmon.  Maxwell  describes  County 
Galway,  the  favorite  scene  of  his  and  Lever's 
western  tales,  as,  ''bounded  on  the  south  and 
east  by  Christendom  and  part  of  Tipperary,  on 
the  north  by  Donegal,  and  on  the  west  by  the 
Salt  SayT  The  west,  too,  was  a  sanctuary 
for  debtors.  There  bailiffs  and  process-servers 
penetrated  at  their  peril,  and  generally  beat 
a  quick  retreat  after  dining  upon  the  papers 
they  came  to  serve.  It  was  the  home  of  old 
Irish  hospitality  and  conviviality.  Here  the 
gentry  were  wont  to  "exchange  the  lie  direct 
and  a  full  decanter "  of  an  evening,  and  to 
take  their  satisfaction  on  the  lawn  tlie  next 
morning.      Lever,    in   his    song    TJie    Man  for 


THE  NOVELISTS   OF  THE   GENTRY  81 

G-alway^  hits  off  epigrammatically  this  western 
type:  — 

"  To  drink  a  toast, 
A  proctor  roast, 
Or  bailiff  as  the  case  is ; 
To  kiss  your  wife, 
Or  take  your  life, 
At  ten  or  fifteen  paces ; 
To  keep  game-cocks ;  to  hunt  the  fox; 
To  drink  in  punch  the  Solway ; 
With  debts  galore,  but  fun  far  more ; 
Oh,  that's  the  man  for  Galway  —  " 

Maxwell's  The  Wild  Sports  of  the  West  (1833), 
the  chronicle  of  a  sporting  summer  and  fall 
spent  chiefly  in  the  counties  of  Mayo,  Sligo,  and 
Gahvay,  can  hardly  pass  for  a  novel,  though  it 
embodies  some  good  short  stories  and  legends. 
The  disciple  of  rod  and  gun  will  find  in  it  a 
fund  of  reliable  sporting  anecdote  and  adven- 
ture. The  novel  reader  will  enjoy  the  tales  and 
legends  with  which  it  is  interspersed  —  indeed, 
the  Memoir  of  the  Grentleman  WIio  Would  Not  Do 
for  G-alway  of  itself  is  sufficient  to  keep  the 
book  alive,  and  with  Dr.  Maginn's  Boh  Burkes 
Duel  with  Ensign  Brady  may  stand  as  a  repre- 
sentative example  of  the  "rattling  Hibernian 
tale."       Besides    these    attractions,    the    book 


82  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  EICTION 

abounds  in  descriptions  of  the  wild  and  star- 
tling landscapes  of  Connauglit,  and  in  faithfully 
painted  joictures  of  the  men  and  manners  of 
that  province. 

The  Adventures  of  Captain  Blahe  (1836),  the 
first  of  Maxwell's  novels  proper  to  deal  with  west- 
ern life,  has  for  its  hero  a  young  military  gentle- 
man. Captain  Blake,  who  marries  a  fine  lady 
English  wife,  and  carries  her  back  to  his  an- 
cestral castle  in  County  Galway.  These  are 
the  young  bride's  first  impressions  of  Galway 
life :  — 

"Those  now  around  her  seemed  a  separate 
race  from  any  she  had  been  accustomed  to. 
Careless  of  the  present,  reckless  of  the  future, 
they  acted  from  momentary  impulse,  and  seemed 
indifferent  whether  the  result  was  right  or 
wrong.  The  women  rode,  visited,  dressed, 
flirted,  danced,  and  married.  The  men  hunted, 
shot,  played,  drank,  quarrelled,  fought,  and 
made  friends  again.  Out  of  doors  there  was 
clamor  and  confusion  ;  within  a  wasteful,  ir- 
regular, comfortless  course  of  dissipation,  to 
which  neither  tide  nor  time  appeared  to  place 
a  limit."! 

No  portrait  from  Maxwell's  gallery  of  West- 
ern squires  is  more  characteristic  than  that  of 
1  Captain  Blake,  p.  57. 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     83 

Manus  Blake,  the  uncle  of  the  Captain  I51ake 
above  mentioned.  A  letter  written  by  Manus 
Blake  to  his  absent  nephew  presents  the  man 
himself,  and  includes  a  picturesque  glimpse 
of  country  life  in  Galway.  It  runs  in  part 
thus  :  — 


" '  Dear  Jack  :  You  will  expect,  no  doubt,  to 
hear  the  news  of  the  neighborhood. 

'' '  Father  Roger  has  got  the  parish  of  Bally- 
boffin.  The  people  were  sadly  neglected  by 
the  old  priest,  who  was  bedridden  for  years. 
Father  Roger  has  turned  over  a  new  leaf  with 
them,  and  the  first  Sunday  he  cursed  them  out 
of  the  face  with  bell,  book,  and  candle,  to  show 
them  that  they  must  look  to  their  souls  in 
future. 

"  '  Tony,  poor  man  !  broke  his  leg  last  Tues- 
day by  a  fall  from  the  switch- tailed  mare.  It 
was  a  great  blessing,  when  he  was  to  break  a 
bone,  that  it  happened  at  the  end  of  the 
season. 

" '  A  set  of  Ballybooley  boys,  the  other  night, 
took  off  Sibby  M'Clintok,  the  schoolmaster's 
daughter.  There  is  a  great  hullabaloo  in  con- 
sequence, but  no  tidings  yet.  Fm  glad  she's 
gone,  for  your  cousin  Jack  was  eternally  drop- 
ping in.  It's  not  right  to  put  temptation  in 
a  young  man's  way  ;  and  as  he's  in  delicate 
health  his  mother  won't  allow  him  to  be  con- 
tradicted in  anything. 


84  IRISH  LIFE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 

"  '  Denis  Corcoran  burned  powder  for  the  first 
time,  last  week,  in  a  field  near  Ballinasloe.  It 
is  allowed  on  all  hands  that  he  behaved  prettily, 
and  hit  his  man  the  second  shot.  One  is  inter- 
ested naturally  for  a  friend's  child,  and  indeed 
I  always  thought  that  Denis  was  a  promising 
boy. 

"  ^  Poor  Darby  Moran,  —  a  decent  boy  he  was, 
—  him  you  may  remember  that  they  called 
"  Darby  Dhu"  (l3lack),  was  hanged  last  Monday 
for  shooting  at  a  peeler.^  It  was  hard  enough 
upon  him,  as  he  only  lamed  the  fellow  for  life. 
As  he  was  a  tenant's  son,  your  aunt,  out  of  re- 
spect, sent  the  maid  upon  the  jaunting-car  to 
attend  the  execution.  He  died  real  game,  and 
pleased  the  priest  greatly  before  he  came  out 
upon  the  drop.  We  gave  him  a  good  wake  and 
a  fine  funeral. 

" '  Dr.  Stringer  was  fired  at  in  mistake  when 
leaving  Mount  Kirwan  after  dinner  ;  they  shot 
his  horse  dead  ;  and  when  they  discovered  he 
was  the  wrong  man,  they  made  him  an  ample 
apology.  They  took  him  in  the  dark  for  Par- 
son Milligan,  who  rode  a  gray  cob,  and  liad  on 
a  dark  cottamore.^ 

"  '•  Father  Roger  is  breaking  fast,  and  you'll  be 
sorry  to  hear  it.  You  remember  what  a  head 
he  had.  Two  bottles  of  port  now  make  liim 
talk  tliick,  and  the  tliird  smothers  liim  totally. 
More's  tlie  pity  !  A  better  Christian  never 
cursed  a  tlock  ;  and  a  companion  —  one  might 

1  rolicemaii.  ^  CoUamore,  a  great  coat. 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE   GENTRY  85 

drink  with  him  in  the  dark  and  ask  no  ques- 
tions. 

" '  Ever  your  affectionate  uncle, 

"'Manus  Blake.'"! 


Lever,  in  depicting  western  life,  ranges 
wider  than  Maxwell,  and  observes  in  more 
detail.  The  best  of  his  western  scenes  are 
in  Lorrequer^  O'Malley^  and  Hinton^  where  he 
gives  his  gayety  free  rein,  and  displays  the 
dash  and  "  go "  which  are  the  great  attrac- 
tions of  his  books.  Life  in  the  west,  like 
town  life,  is  seen  through  the  eyes  of  Lever's 
favorite  hero,  —  the  gay  young  gentleman 
soldier. 

Lever's  stories  throng  with  western  types  — 
all  sorts  of  men,  from  stable  boys  to  gentlemen, 
from  small  brothers,  breaking  in  impiously  upon 
the  love  affairs  of  their  elder  sisters,  to  the 
gouty  old  men  who  quarrel  with  their  neigh- 
bors and  shoot  sheriffs  and  bailiffs.  A  bird's- 
eye  view  of  Lever's  western  scenes  may  begin 
with  O'Malley's  account  of  the  education  his 
father  gave  him  :  — 

1  Captain  Blake,  pp.  194-197. 


86  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

"  From  my  earliest  years  his  whole  anxiety 
was  to  fit  me  for  the  part  of  a  country  gentle- 
man, as  he  regarded  that  character,  viz.,  I 
rode  boldly  with  fox-hounds  ;  I  was  about  the 
best  shot  within  twenty  miles  of  us  ;  I  could 
swim  the  Shannon  at  Holy  Island  ;  I  drove 
four-in-hand  better  than  the  coachman  himself, 
and  from  finding  a  hare  to  hooking  a  salmon, 
my  equal  could  not  be  found  from  Killaloe  to 
Banagher.  These  were  the  staple  of  my  endow- 
ments ;  besides  which,  the  parish  priest  had 
taught  me  a  little  Latin,  a  little  French,  and 
a  little  geometry,  and  a  great  deal  of  the  life 
and  opinions  of  St.  Jago,  who  presided  over  a 
holy  well  in  the  neighborhood,  and  was  held  in 
very  considerable  repute."  ^ 

The  experiences  of  this  young  fellow  who 
has  introduced  himself  make  up  the  picture 
of  the  west  as  it  stands  in  O'Malley.  One  of 
these  experiences  was  a  visit  to  Mr.  Blake,  a 
western  squire.  O'Malley  describes  him  and 
his  family :  — 

"The  head  of  the  family  was  a  Galway 
squire  of  the  oldest  and  most  genuine  stock  ;  a 
great  sportsman,  a  negligent  farmer,  and  most 
careless  father  ;  he  looked  upon  a  fox  as  an 
infinitely  more  precious  part  of  the  creation 
than  a  French  governess  ;  and  thought  tliat 
riding  well  with  hounds  was  a  far  better  gift 

1  Charles  O'Malley,  p.  7. 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     87 

than  all  the  learning  of  a  Porson.  His  daugh- 
ters were  after  his  own  heart,  —  the  best-tem- 
pered, least-educated,  most  high-spirited,  gay, 
dashing,  ugly  girls  in  the  country,  —  ready  to 
ride  over  a  four-foot  paling  without  a  saddle, 
and  to  dance  the  "  Wind  that  shakes  the  bar- 
ley "  for  four  consecutive  hours,  against  all  the 
officers  that  their  hard  fate  and  the  Horse 
Guards  ever  condemned  to  Gal  way.  "^ 

Mr.  Blake  lived  in  the  slovenly  splendor 
and  barbarous  profusion  that  characterized  the 
country  gentry  of  little  more  than  a  century 
ago.  The  gate  lodge  was  a  wretched  hovel ;  the 
avenue  covered  with  weeds  and  deep  with  ruts ; 
the  great  lawn  before  the  house  used  as  a  train- 
ing ground  for  horses  ;  the  house  itself  half 
ruinous ;  the  broken  windows  stopped  with 
whatever  came  handy;  the  steps  dilapidated  and 
falling ;  the  doors  hanging  by  a  single  hinge  ; 
the  furniture  handsome,  but  dusty  and  worn. 
O'Malley's  account  of  the  house  of  the  Blakes 
recalls  Swift's  account  of  Quilca,  the  disorderly 
country  place  of  his  friend  Sheridan. 

A  wonderful  dinner  in  the  western  style  was 
one  of  the  incidents  of  O'Malley's  visit  to  the 
Blakes.     With  the  dinner  came  the  usual  high 

1  Charles  O'Malley,  p.  9. 


88  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

tides  of  claret  and  oceans  of  punch,  songs  and 
hilarity,  and,  of  course,  for  a  grand  finale,  a 
quarrel  —  an  insult,  a  glass  of  wine  hurled  in 
the  offender's  face,  and  a  duel  next  morning. 
It  was  O'Malley  who  gat  into  trouble.  In  the 
duel,  fought  on  the  estate  of  his  opponent, 
Bodkin,  O'Malley  hit  his  man,  and  was  peace- 
ably departing,  when  a  mob  of  Bodkin's  ten- 
ants, believing  their  master  dead,  started  in 
pursuit  of  his  supposed  murderer,  bent  on  ven- 
geance, and  O'Malley  and  his  second  had  a 
race  home  of  it  for  their  lives. 

A  picture  of  western  life  without  a  fox-hunt 
would  be  incomplete,  and  the  great  event  of 
O'Malley's  sojourn  with  the  Blakes  is  the  hunt 
arranged  by  the  host  for  the  amusement  of  his 
guests,  among  them  O'Malley's  rival,  a  super- 
cilious English  dragoon,  whom  O'Malley  re- 
solves to  outride  in  the  eyes  of  his  lady,  and  to 
the  glory  of  Irish  sport.  As  a  stirrup  piece 
there  are  few  things  to  put  beside  the  story  of 
this  hunt,  that  tells  how  O'Malley,  sweeping 
over  ditches,  streams,  and  towering  walls,  took 
tlie  final  preposterous  and  impossible,  but 
gloriously  successful,  leap  over  the  sunk  fence 
to  the  everlasting  honor  of  tlie  Galway  hunters 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE   GENTRY  89 

and  the  shame  of  the  English  dragoon  who 
raced  him  neck-and-neck  through  all  the  hunt, 
only  to  break  his  beast's  bones  and  his  own 
over  this  last  and  greatest  obstacle. 

The  typical  Irish  novel  must  have  a  con- 
tested election.  There  is  a  spirited  one  in 
O'Malley.  Charles's  uncle  is  one  of  the  candi- 
dates. The  house  is  full  of  his  uncle's  sup- 
porters, and  eating,  drinking,  joking,  and 
fighting  go  on  apace  night  and  day.  Scores 
of  Gal  way  squires,  troops  of  squireen  gentry, 
bullet-headed  peasants,  electioneering  agents, 
and  sleek,  roguish-eyed  electioneering  priests 
swarm  over  the  lawn.  "  Elections  of  the  past," 
says  O'Malley,  "were  not  the  tame  farces  of 
later  days :  — 

"In  the  goodly  days  I  speak  of,  a  county 
contest  was  a  very  different  thing  indeed  from 
the  tame  and  insipid  farce  that  now  passes 
under  that  name ;  where  a  briefless  barrister, 
bullied  on  both  sides,  sits  as  assessor  —  a  few 
drunken  voters  —  a  radical  O'Connellite  grocer 
—  a  demagogue  priest  —  a  deputy  grand  pur- 
ple something  from  the  Trinity  College  lodge, 
with  some  half  dozen  followers  shouting  to  the 
devil  with  Peel,  or  down  with  Dens,  form 
the  whole  corps  de  ballet.  No,  no  ;  in  the  times 
I  refer  to  the  voters  were  some  thousands  in 


90  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

number,  and  the  adverse  parties  took  the  field, 
far  less  dependent  for  success  upon  previous 
pledge  or  promise  made  them,  than  upon  the 
actual  stratagem  of  the  day.  Each  went  forth, 
like  a  general  to  battle,  surrounded  by  a  numer- 
ous and  well-chosen  staff ;  one  party  of  friends, 
acting  as  a  commissariat,  attending  to  the 
victualling  of  the  voters,  that  they  obtained  a 
due,  or  rather  undue,  allowance  of  liquor,  and 
came  properly  drunk  to  the  poll ;  others  again 
broke  into  skirmishing  parties,  and,  scattered 
over  the  country,  cut  off  the  enemy's  supplies, 
breaking  down  their  post-chaises,  upsetting 
their  jaunting  cars,  stealing  their  poll-books, 
and  kidnapping  their  agents.  .  .  .  Such,  in 
brief,  was  a  contest  in  the  olden  time  ;  and  when 
it  is  taken  into  consideration  tliat  it  usually 
lasted  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks,  that  a  con- 
siderable military  force  was  engaged  (for  our 
Irish  law  permits  this),  and  which,  Avhen  noth- 
ing pressing  was  doing,  was  regularly  assailed 
by  both  parties — that  far  more  dependence 
was  placed  in  a  bludgeon  than  a  pistol  —  and 
that  when  a  man  who  registered  a  vote  without 
a  cracked  pate  was  regarded  as  a  kind  of 
natural  phenomenon,  some  faint  idea  may  be 
formed  how  much  such  a  scene  must  have  con- 
tributed to  the  peace  of  the  country  and  the 
liappiness  and  welfare  of  all  concerned  in  it." 

The  Irish  novels  that  followed  Hlnton  spread 
out  into  a  broad  transitional  survey  of  Irish 
society,  and  may  be  considered  in  tlie  main  as 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE   GENTRY  91 

an  illustration  of  tlie  process  by  which  the  old 
families  of  the  laud  deca3'ed,  were  uprooted 
from  the  soil  in  which  they  had  grown  for 
centuries,  and  finally  supplanted  by  a  new  race 
of  landlords.  They  show  how  the  old  land- 
lords, with  all  the  airs  and  privileges  of  a 
superior  class,  were  really,  in  principles  and 
ideas,  too  little  above  those  over  whom  they 
were  masters,  and  how  the  growth  from  below 
upward  toward  education  left  the  peasantry 
with  a  consciousness  of  this  fact.  The  spirit 
of  democracy  and  the  debit  and  credit  relations 
of  political  economy  are  seen  in  conflict  with 
the  old  feudal  idea  of  an  exchange  of  service 
and  loyalty  for  protection  and  sympathy.  As 
service  became  less  willingly  rendered,  land- 
lords had  less  power,  and  as  landlord  power 
decreased,  landlord  pride  and  irritable  tyranny 
increased.  These  novels  present  the  strange 
social  condition  of  a  time  when  a  belated 
feudalism,  left  behind  in  the  race  of  civiliza- 
tion, was  maintaining  a  kind  of  guerilla  warfare 
against  law  and  order,  and  with,  a  measure  of 
success  that  is  astonishing  when  it  is  remem- 
bered that  this  was  a  state  of  things  existing 
but  a  century  since.     The  peasantry,  bewildered 


92  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

by  the  sundering  of  old  ties,  look  to  demagogues 
for  sympathy  and  guidance.  Lever  follows  the 
problem  down  a  step  farther  to  consider  the 
position  of  the  descendants  of  the  ruined  gentry 
at  a  remove  of  one  or  two  generations,  left  with- 
out house  or  land  or  resources,  and  at  a  loss 
where  to  turn  for  support,  or  how  to  direct  their 
energies. 

But  it  is  not  only  to  a  study  of  the  decay  of 
the  old  gentry  and  the  growth  of  a  new  social 
type  that  Lever  devotes  himself,  though  this 
may  be  called  his  central  theme.  He  illus- 
trates also  the  important  political  and  social 
changes  from  the  days  when  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment became  independent  in  1782.  He  repre- 
sents the  condition  of  the  country  in  the  years 
preceding  the  Rebellion  of  '98 ;  the  treasonable 
correspondence  with  France  ;  the  operations 
of  the  secret  societies  ;  the  counter  agencies 
of  government ;  the  explosions  of  abortive 
plots.  The  period  of  the  Union  is  also  treated, 
and  the  immediate  effects  of  Catholic  Emanci- 
pation. 

Noteworthy  among  these  novels  in  one  way 
or  another  are  The  O'Doiioghue  (1845),  The 
Knight    of   Gwynne   (1847),   and    The    Martina 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   GENTRY  93 

of  Cro  Martin  (1847).  These,  with  Lorrequer^ 
O'Malley^  and  llinton^  contain  pretty  much 
everything  that  Lever  has  to  say  of  Ireland 
and  the  Irish. 

In  The  0' Donoghiie  the  impoverished  Cath- 
olic gentlemen  hold  the  centre  of  the  stage. 
The  story  covers  a  period  extending  from  just 
before  to  a  little  after  the  time  when  the 
French  fleet  sailed  into  Bantry  Bay.  The 
O'Donoghues  belong  to  an  old  and  illustrious 
Catholic  family.  Poor  as  they  are  proud,  they 
live,  of  necessity,  the  life  of  the  half -gentry, 
half -farmer  set.  Though  they  still  dwell  in  the 
ancestral  castle  —  a  ruinous,  half -furnished  old 
barrack — they  are  on  the  point  of  finding  them- 
selves in  the  condition  of  the  people  of  Mickey 
Free's  song  :  — 

"  Oh  !  once  we  were  illegant  people, 

Though  we  now  live  in  cabins  of  mud, 
And  the  land  that  ye  see  from  the  steeple 

Belonged  to  us  all  from  the  flood. 
My  father  was  then  king  of  Connaught, 

My  grandaunt  viceroy  of  Tralee ; 
But  the  Sassenach  came,  and,  signs  on  it ! 

The  devil  an  acre  have  we." 

Crippled  with  debt  and  weighed  down  with 
mortgages,   they   subsist    in    a   shifty   conflict 


94  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

with  creditors,  process  servers,  and  bailiffs, 
any  one  of  whom  the  butler,  stationed  at  the 
front  door  with  a  loaded  carbine,  is  prepared 
to  shoot  on  sight.  The  degrading  effect  of 
this  sort  of  life  is  illustrated  in  INIark 
O'Donoghue,  the  son  and  heir  of  the  house. 
He  wears  a  frieze  coat  like  the  peasants,  and 
shuns  the  gentry,  whose  hospitality  he  cannot 
return.  He  sells  horses,  hunts,  and  fishes  for 
a  livelihood,  and  lives  embittered  by  a  vague 
sense  of  wrong  born  of  his  wretched  circum- 
stances. When  the  United  Irishmen  approach 
him  with  a  plan  for  Irish  independence  from 
England  through  a  rebellion  and  a  French 
invasion,  he  lends  a  ready  ear,  for  the  old 
Catholic  families  will  then  come  to  their  own 
again  and  stand  forth  at  the  head  of  their  old 
estates.  He  joins  the  United  Irishmen  and 
devotes  himself  to  the  spread  of  the  movement 
in  his  neighborhood. 

Lever  had  always  a  very  particular  predilec- 
tion for  the  Irish  gentleman  of  the  old  school, 
whom  he  thought  the  most  picturesque  bit  of 
nationality  of  modern  times.  Variations  of 
the  type  abound  in  his  novels,  but.  The  Knight 
of    Gwynne   is    the   flower   of    them    all.     He 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     95 

represents  one  of  the  pleasantest  of  Irish 
types,  one  of  the  class  to  whom  close  inter- 
course with  France  had  lent  a  polish  and  re- 
jSnement  that  added  grace  and  fascination  to 
the  native  geniality,  heartiness,  and  fervor. 
Lever  clearly  embodies  in  him  the  traits  of 
his  ideal  of  a  gentleman  —  frankness,  high 
spirit,  sociability,  courtesy,  fidelity  in  friend- 
ship, a  nice  sense  of  honor,  brave  devotion  to  a 
cause,  and  a  chivalrous  respect  toward  women. 
He  gives  the  Knight  all  the  paraphernalia  of 
a  great  gentleman,  in  the  description  of  which 
he  always  delights.  He  is  nobly  housed  in  an 
ancient  Gothic  mansion,  set  down  in  the  centre 
of  a  wide  demesne,  and  equipped  with  a  stud, 
a  kennel,  a  hall  full  of  servants,  and  every 
other  appanage  proper  to  a  country  gentleman. 
Add  to  this  a  tenantry,  happy  and  devoted, 
who  recognize  in  him  all  the  virtues  of  the  best 
of  landlords,  and  the  picture  is  complete. 

The  story  has  also  political  interest.  It 
illustrates  the  methods  that  were  folloAved  in 
consummating  the  Union  of  the  Irish  and 
English 'parliaments.  The  young  Lord  Castle- 
reagh,  Secretary  for  Ireland,  a  type  well  within 
Lever's  range,  the  most   prominent   figure  in 


96  IRISH  LIFE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 

the  transaction,  is  notably  lifelike  and  con- 
vincing. He  belongs  to  a  class  of  aristocratic 
politicians  of  an  earlier  day,  who  lived  by  the 
game  and  frankly  held  all  means  fair  to  win. 
At  first  he  appears  looking  about  in  town 
and  country  to  see  what  gentlemen  are  in  the 
market  to  be  bought  by  honors,  titles,  or 
money.  His  emissaries  are  at  every  club  and 
dinner-table  in  Dublin,  and  in  the  houses  of 
the  country  members,  exerting  their  utmost 
tact  to  tempt  and  bribe  without  ruffling  the 
national  susceptibilities  of  those  they  ap- 
proached. Castlereagh  himself  scatters  bribes 
to  right  and  left  among  the  nobility  and 
gentry  in  the  most  open  and  unblushing 
manner,  taking  no  shame  to  himself  on  this 
score,  but  pursuing  his  course  with  a  quiet, 
businesslike  composure,  and  without  the  slight- 
est indication  of  a  moment's  uneasiness,  serene 
in  the  use  of  the  basest  means  to  the  desired 
end.  When  his  offers  are  scornfully  or  in- 
sultingly refused,  he  bears  no  malice,  but 
sets  down  rebuffs  to  the  credit  of  the  outraged 
gentlemen's  honesty  and  patriotism. 

Tlte  Martins  of  Cro'  Martin,  lays  bare  the  mech- 
anisai  of  a  great  estate,     Tlie  time  is  just  after 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE    GENTRY  97 

Catholic  Emancipation.  The  head  of  the  Martin 
family  is  a  gentleman  of  a  later  day  than  the 
Knight  of  Gwynne.  He  is  the  ease-loving  Irish 
proprietor,  shirking  the  cares  of  his  estate,  with 
an  immense  self-esteem,  narrow,  obstinate,  weak, 
without  ideas,  and  with  a  boundless  faith  in  his 
own  dignity,  elegance,  and  divine  right  to  rule 
his  tenants.  The  story  illustrates  the  practical 
working  of  the  Catholic  Emancipation  Act. 
The  peasantry,  alienated  by  the  indifference  of 
the  Martins  to  their  interest,  and  hence  at  the 
mercy  of  demagogues,  decline  to  give  their  sup- 
port to  the  hereditary  lord  of  the  manor,  and  cast 
their  votes  for  a  candidate  of  their  own  choosing. 
Martin,  disgusted  at  what  he  considers  ingrati- 
tude and  disloyalty,  quits  home  to  live  abroad, 
leaving  his  estates  and  their  tenantry  to  the 
mercies  of  a  Scotch  steward.  To  the  Martins 
abroad  come  letters,  bringing  out,  as  is  so  often 
and  effectively  done  in  these  novels,  the  terrible 
contrasts  that  Irish  life  presented  —  the  absentee 
plunged  in  all  the  gayeties  of  London  or  Paris  ; 
the  peasantry  at  home  struggling  with  poverty, 
famine,  and  disease,  and  ground  under  the  heel 
of  a  heartless  middleman. 

There  was  something   of  Lever  and  a  good 


98  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

deal  of  Maxwell  in  William  Maginn  (1793- 
1842),  who  takes  a  place  among  Irish  story-tellers 
by  virtue  of  a  few  tales.  Maginn  was  the  orig- 
inal of  Captain  Shandon  of  Pendennis.  He  was 
of  the  race  of  witty,  eccentric  Anglo-Irishmen 
to  which  Goldsmith,  Sheridan,  and  their  like 
belong.  After  a  brilliant  record  at  Trinity 
College,  Dublin,  Maginn  spent  ten  years  as  a 
schoolmaster  in  his  native  city,  Cork.  But  his 
wild,  wit-squandering  nature  was  not  cast  in  the 
mould  of  a  pedagogue,  and  he  gave  up  teach- 
ing to  devote  himself  to  literature  in  Edinburgh 
and  London  as  a  contributor  to  Blachvood^s, 
Fraser's^  and  other  periodicals.  The  irregular- 
ities of  his  life,  and  his  habits  of  intemperance, 
the  latter  induced  partly  perhaps  by  the  Bohe- 
mianism  that  flourished  so  vigorously  in  journal- 
istic circles  in  the  early  days  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  gradually  brouglit  his  affairs  into  hope- 
less disorder,  and  sent  him  into  hiding  to  escape 
the  sheriff's  officers.  In  vain  kind  friends  came 
to  the  rescue,  Thackeray,  with  his  characteristic 
generosity  lending  him,  or  in  plain  terms  giving 
liim,  on  one  occasion,  .£500.  Drink,  improvi- 
dence, and  a  defiance  of  all  the  laws  of  living 
were  for  long  unable  to  quench  the  audacious 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY     99 

gayety  of  his  nature  ;  but  at  last  they  broke  him 
in  health  and  fortune,  and,  fairly  beaten  in  the 
battle  of  life,  he  died  in  his  forty-ninth  year. 

There  is  little  of  Irish  life  in  any  of  Maginn's 
stories,  but  the  Hibernian  spirit  rules  in  all,  and 
certain  Hibernian  traits  find  abundant  illustra- 
tion. It  is  the  Memoirs  of  Morgan  Odolierty, 
Boh  Burke  s  Duel  with  Ensign  Brady ^  The  Story 
Without  a  Tail,  and  a  few  other  productions  that 
give  him  a  nook  in  the  company  of  story-tellers 
here  considered.  The  first  of  these  is  an  account 
in  a  vein  of  broad  comed}^  of  the  loves  and  ad- 
ventures of  Ensign  Odoherty  of  the  King's  Own 
Tipperary  Regiment  in  the  land  of  Saints,  in 
England,  Scotland,  and  on  the  continent,  and 
includes  selections  from  the  occasional  and  other 
poems  of  that  swaggering  and  voluble  subaltern. 
Bob  Burhe's  Duel  tells  of  the  desperate  encounter 
between  Bob  Burke  and  the  ensign  of  the  48th, 
and  records  circumstantially  how,  in  that  affair, 
Bob  hit  the  ensign  on  the  waistcoat  pocket, 
which,  wonderful  to  relate,  contained  a  five -shil- 
ling piece,  that  saved  its  fortunate  possessor 
from  grim  death. 

Father  Tom  and  the  Pope  (1838),  which  has 
been   repeatedly  attributed   to    Maginn,  is,  in 


100  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

fact,  strangely  enough,  a  jeu  d'esprit  from  the 
pen  of  Sir  Samuel  Ferguson,  the  interpreter  of 
the  shadowy  grandeurs  and  fairy  glamours  of 
Celtic  romance.  This  little  masterpiece  of  comic 
extravagance  tells  how  an  Irish  hedge-priest  paid 
a  visit  to  the  Vatican,  armed  with  two  imperial 
quart  bottles  of  poteen  ;  how  he  introduced 
his  Holiness  to  the  national  beverage,  routed 
him  in  a  theological  argument,  and  left  him  at 
last  hors  de  combat;  and  it  tells  all  this  in  the 
true  vein  of  purely  native  humor  and  with  all 
the  savor  of  the  turf-and-whiskey  wit. 


II.    The  novelists  of  the  gentry  ivho  ivrite  chiefly 
of  the  peasantry 

Thomas  Davis,  in  a  criticism  of  Carleton, 
prophesied  the  rapid  disappearance  of  Irish 
superstitions.  1  The  prophecy  has  not  yet  been 
fulfilled.  The  fairy  race  still  lives  in  Ireland, 
and  fairy-land  is  still  real.  It  is  true  that 
education,  bringing  a  knowledge  of  natural 
law,  has  solved  many  mysteries,  and  weakened 
the  belief  in  supernatural  powers  that  con- 
stantly interfere  in  the  natural  course  of  human 
1  Essai/s  by  Davis,  p.  201). 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE   GENTRY  101 

action.  But  to  the  masses  wlio  have  little  or 
no  education,  who  see  strange  results  and  know- 
nothing  of  approximate  causes,  every  phenome- 
non is  held  to  result  from  the  direct  action  of 
mysterious,  non-human  powers.  The  Irish  have 
always  been  marked  by  a  vivid  sense  of  relation 
to  a  spiritual  and  invisible  world;  and  they 
have  formulated  a  fantastic  creed  respecting  it, 
a  strange  fusion  of  Christian  legend  and  pagan 
myth.  This  creed  finds  expression  in  a  rich 
store  of  fairy -lore,  folk-lore,  and  legend ;  and 
all  these  take  an  important  place  in  the  work  of 
the  novelists,  one  of  whom  has  devoted  himself 
exclusively  to  them.  Thomas  Crofton  Croker 
(1798-1854),  as  the  historian  of  the  fairies  — 
the  creatures  of  peasant  fancy  —  is  the  first  of 
the  novelists  of  the  gentry  who  take  their  ma- 
terial chiefly  from  peasant  life.  Croker  came 
of  a  family  of  English  descent  that  settled  in 
the  sister  island  in  Elizabeth's  reign.  From 
boyhood  he  showed  literary,  artistic,  and  anti- 
quarian tastes ;  and  in  his  youth,  and  in  the 
leisure  of  his  manhood,  he  delighted  to  ramble 
about  sketching  and  studying  the  manners 
and  traditions  of  the  country.  In  1818  he 
went    to    London    to    take    an   office    in    the 


102  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

Admiralty,  which  he  held  for  upward  of  thirty 
years. 

The  Fairy  Legends  and  Traditions  of  the  South 
of  Ireland  (1825)  grew  out  of  his  Irish  rambles 
and  studies  from  his  boyhood  days  to  the  time 
of  their  publication.  The  complete  and  deserved 
success  of  the  book  made  Croker  known  to  liter- 
ary people,  and  led  to  pleasant  friendships  with 
Moore,  Sydney  Smith,  Father  Prout,  Miss  Edge- 
worth,  Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  others.  Miss 
Edge  worth  and  Sir  Walter  took  particular 
delight  in  The  Fairy  Legends.  For  the  rest 
Croker  was  a  learned  antiquarian,  an  editor 
and  commentator  upon  old  manuscripts  and 
Irish  songs  and  ballads,  a  constant  contributor 
to  the  periodicals,  and  a  working  member  of 
various  learned  societies.  He  takes  his  place 
among  Irish  story-tellers  by  virtue  of  his  Fairy 
Legends  and  Legends  of  the  Lakes  (1829). 

A  variety  of  supernatural  beings  appear  in 
his  tales.  The  fairies,  or  "good  people,"  as  the 
peasantry  call  them,  were  shy  creatures,  who 
shunned  the  curious  eyes  of  men,  and  might  be 
seen  at  their  approacli  scudding  u})  into  the  sky 
like  flights  of  bees.  The  Shefros,  or  fairies  that 
lived  in  troops  or  communities,  *'  showed  "  them- 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   GENTRY  103 

selves  most  frequently  to  mortals.  Jack  Mulli- 
gan of  "  Fairies  or  No  Fairies  "  surprised  a  troop 
of  them  in  their  moonlight  revels.  Jack  was 
riding  home  after  an  evening  spent  with  a  friend 
in  discussing  sundry  jugs  of  stiff  punch,  when 
he  saw  — 

"  A  brilliant  company  of  lovely  little  forms 
dancing  under  the  oak  with  an  unsteady  and 
rolling  motion.  .  .  .  Never  did  man  see  any- 
thing more  beautiful.  They  were  not  three 
inches  in  height,  but  they  were  as  white  as  the 
driven  snow,  and  beyond  number  numberless."  ^ 

The  favorite  amusements  of  the  fairies  seem 
to  have  been  fighting,  frolicking,  playing  and 
singing  music  of  their  own  making,  feasting, 
dancing,  and  hunting.  Old  Tom  Bourke,  one 
of  the  mortals  favored  with  the  confidence  of 
the  good  people  and  supposed  to  have  influence 
with  them  —  "  fairy  doctors  "  such  were  called, 
— used  to  sit  and  watch  them  playing  at  goal 
by  the  hour. 

The  fairies  were  devoted  to  the  hunt,  too,  and 
Paddy  Cavanagh,  a  man  whom  no  one  ever 
heard  tell  a  lie  or  saw  drunk,  declared  he  met 
a  troop  of  them  engaged  in  the  sport :  — 

1  Fairy  Legends^  "  Fairies  or  No  Fairies." 


104  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

"  There  came  the  darlingest  little  cavalcade 
of  the  prettiest  little  fellows  you  ever  laid 
your  eyes  upon.  They  Avere  all  dressed  in 
green  hunting  frocks,  with  nice  little  red  caps 
on  their  heads,  and  they  were  mounted  on 
pretty  little  long-tailed  white  ponies,  not  so 
big  as  young  kids,  and  they  rode  two  and  two 
so  nicely.  .  .  .  They  took  the  ditch,  you  see, 
big  as  it  is,  in  full  stroke ;  not  a  man  of  them 
was  shook  in  his  seat  or  lost  his  rank ;  it  was 
pop,  pop,  pop,  over  with  them,  and  then,  hurra ! 
away  with  them  like  shot  across  the  high  field, 
in  the  direction  of  the  old  church."^ 

The  fairies  of  The  Fairy  Legends  are,  on  the 
whole,  a  merry,  pleasant,  well-disposed  tribe  — 
a  true  expression  of  Irish  nature.  They  have 
a  sense  of  justice  and  fair  play,  and  love  the 
liberal  hand  and  the  kindly  word.  But  they 
are  whimsical  and  easily  vexed,  and  in  anger 
never  count  the  cost  of  their  caprices  to  mor- 
tals. Nothing  vexes  them  more  than  inter- 
ference with  their  customs  and  pastimes.  Woe 
betide  the  man  avIio  profanes  the  scene  of  their 
revels  with  plough  or  spade !  His  cattle  will 
fall  in  bog  holes,  his  horses  pine  away  and  die, 
and  his  butter  spoil.  The  most  formidable 
attribute  of  the  fairies  was  their  liabit  of  steal- 
1  Fairy  Legends^  "The  Harvest  Dinner." 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  GENTRY    105 

ing  away  the  fairest  new-born  babes  and  leaving 
ugly,  wasted  creatures  in  their  stead,  after  the 
manner  of  Robin  Goodfellow's  song:  — 

"  When  larks  'gin  sing 

Away  we  fling 
And  babes  new-born  steal  as  we  go, 

An  elf  in  bed 

We  leave  instead, 
And  wend  us  laughing.     Ho !  ho !  ho !  '* 

Happily,  a  return  of  stolen  children  might 
be  effected.  In  "  The  Brewery  of  Egg-Shells  " 
(a  story  particularly  pleasing  for  the  pretty 
picture  of  babyhood  at  its  close)  Mrs.  Sulli- 
van found  one  day  her  blue-eyed  boy  of  the 
night  before  withered  to  almost  nothing  in  the 
morning.  In  this  unhappy  case  an  old  woman, 
cunning  in  fairy  lore,  was  called  in.  Her  ad- 
vice was  to  heat  the  poker  red-hot  and  cram  it 
down  the  ugly  throat  of  the  changeling.  iSIrs. 
Sullivan,  following  the  advice,  heated  the 
poker,  and  started  for  the  cradle  ;  but,  when 
there,  she  found  the  changeling  had  vanished, 
and  saw  in  its  place  — 

"her  own  child  in  a  sweet  sleep,  one  of  his 
soft  round  arms  rested  upon  the  pillow,  —  his 
features  were  as  placid  as  if  their  repose  had 


106  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

never  been  disturbed,  save  the  rosy  mouth,  which 
moved  with  a  gentle  and  regular  breathing."^ 

The  Cluricaunes,  Leprecaunes,  and  Fir  Dar- 
rigs,  unsociable  fairies,  old  and  withered, 
jeering  and  mischievous,  have  all  a  family 
resemblance,  and  belonged  to  a  fairy  race  dis- 
tinguished from  the  trooping  fairies  by  their 
solitary  and  sottish  habits.  Their  occupation 
was  generally  shoe-making,  their  recreations 
smoking  and  drinking.  They  were  supposed 
to  have  a  knowledge  of  buried  treasure,  and 
to  carry  a  purse  containing  a  magic  shilling. 
The  peasants  sought  always  to  outwit  them  by 
getting  the  purse,  and  forcing  them  to  reveal 
the  hiding-place  of  the  treasure.  In  "  Seeing 
and  Believing"  an  old  woman  tells  how  she 
captured  one  when  she  was  a  girl.  She  was 
sitting  in  her  garden,  and  heard  a  tick-tack, 
for  all  the  world  as  if  a  brogue-maker  were 
at  work.     Looking  up,  she  saw — 

"  A  bit  of  an  old  man,  not  a  quarter  so  big  as 
a  new-born  child,  with  a  little  cocked  hat  on 
his  head,  and  a  dudeen  in  his  mouth  smoking 
away,  and  a  plain  old-fashioned  drab-colored 
coat  with  big  buttons  upon  it  on  his  back,  and 
a  pair  of  massy  silver  buckles  in  his  shoes,  that 

1  Fairy  Legends,  "  The  Brewery  of  Egg-Shells." 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   GENTRY  107 

almost  covered  his  feet,  they  were  so  big  ;  and 
he  working  away  as  hard  as  ever  he  could,  heel- 
ing a  pair  of  little  brogues.  The  minute  I  clapt 
my  two  eyes  upon  him  I  knew  him  to  be  a 
Cluricaune  ;  and  as  I  was  stout  and  foolhardy, 
says  I  to  him,  '  God  save  you,  honest  man  ! 
that's  hard  work  you're  at  this  hot  day.'  He 
looked  up  in  my  face  quite  vexed  like ;  so  with 
that  I  made  a  run  at  him,  caught  a  hold  of  him 
in  my  hand,  and  asked  him  where  was  his  purse 
of  money.  '  Money  ?  '  said  he,  '  money  indeed  I 
and  where  would  a  poor  little  old  creature  like 
me  get  money  ? '  '  Come,  come,'  said  I,  '  none 
of  your  tricks :  doesn't  everybody  know  that 
Cluricaunes,  like  you,  are  as  rich  as  the  devil 
himself  ? '  So  I  pulled  out  a  knife  I  had  in  my 
pocket,  and  put  on  as  wicked  a  face  as  ever  I 
could  (and  in  troth,  that  was  no  easy  matter 
for  me  then,  for  I  was  as  comely  and  good- 
humoured  a  looking  girl  as  you'd  see  from  this 
to  Carrignavar)  and  swore  if  he  didn't  instantly 
give  me  his  purse,  or  show  me  a  pot  of  gold, 
rd  cut  the  nose  off  his  face.  Well,  to  be  sure, 
the  little  man  did  look  so  frightened  at  hearing 
these  words  that  I  almost  found  it  in  my  heart 
to  pity  the  poor  little  creature."  ^ 

Rather  more  genial  than  the  generality  of  his 
race  was  that  toping  goblin  Naggeneen  who 
haunted  the  great  wine-cellar  of  Mr.  MacCarthy 
of  Ballinacarthy.     This  elf  played  Puck  with 

1  Fairy  Legends,  "  Seeing  and  Believing." 


108  IRISH  LITE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 

the  kegs  and  casks,  flasks  and  bottles,  and  fright- 
ened the  servants  so  that  none  dared  to  fetch 
the  master's  wine.  The  master  undertook  a 
personal  investigation,  and  descended  to  the 
cellar,  lantern  in  hand.  There  he  found  the 
offender,  a  mite  of  a  creature,  six  inches  in  height, 
astride  a  pipe  of  his  oldest  port,  and  bearing  a 
spigot  upon  his  shoulder. 

"Raising  the  lantern,  Mr.  MacCarthy  con- 
templated the  little  fellow  with  wonder:  he 
wore  a  red  night-cap  on  his  head ;  before  him 
was  a  short  leather  apron,  which  now,  from  his 
attitude,  fell  rather  on  one  side  ;  and  he  had 
stockings  of  a  light  blue  colour,  so  long  as 
nearly  to  cover  the  entire  of  his  leg;  with  shoes, 
having  huge  silver  buckles  in  them,  and  Avith 
high  heels  (perhaps  out  of  vanity  to  make  him 
appear  taller).  His  face  was  like  a  withered 
winter  apple ;  and  his  nose,  which  was  of  a 
bright  crimson  colour,  about  the  tip  Avore  a  deli- 
cate purple  bloom,  like  that  of  a  plum  ;  yet  his 
eyes  twinkled 

'  like  those  mites 
Of  candied  dew  in  moony  nights ' 

and  his  mouth  twitched  up  at  one  side  with  an 
arch  grin.''  ^ 

One  of  the  most  weirdly  beautiful  of  Irisli 

superstitions  is  that  of  tlie  liansliee,  the  aristo- 

1  Fairy  Legends^  "  The  Ilaunlud  CuUar." 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   GENTRY  109 

c ratio  spectre  that  attaches  itself  exclusively  to 
ancient  or  noble  families.  A  number  of  them 
appear  in  Tlie  Fairy  Legends.  The  Banshee 
shows  itself  in  the  form  of  a  female  figure,  with 
hair  and  white  robe  floating  in  the  night  wind, 
wailing  and  pouring  forth  songs  of  frantic 
lamentation.  Its  presence  forebodes  the  death 
of  a  member  of  the  family  with  which  it  is 
associated. 

Another  set  of  legends  gathers  about  the 
Phookas,  spirit  horses  or  birds,  which  mortals 
are  mysteriously  constrained  to  mount,  and 
which  dash  with  their  riders  down  crags  and 
chasms,  over  mad  torrents,  and  through  dark 
midnight  storms,  or  soar  to  dizzy  heights 
amongst  stars  and  clouds.  The  story  of  Daniel 
O'Rourke,  an  Irish  Astolpho,  who  rides  a 
Phooka  eagle  to  the  moon,  is  a  completely 
delightful  product  of  freakish  fancy  and  the 
purest   drollery. 

There  are  legends  also  connected  with  ponds, 
streams,  and  the  sea,  one  group  telling  of  en- 
chanted and  happy  cities  or  countries  lying  in 
the  crystal  depths  of  lakes,  where  the  glass  of 
time  stands  still,  and  no  one  grows  old.  Bands 
of   water-sprites,  too,  make   their   appearance, 


110  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

varying  in  aspect  from  tlie  awesome  thing  "  with 
green  hair  and  long,  green  teeth,"  seen  by  Jack 
Dogherty  of  "The  Soul  Cages,"  to  the  gentle  and 
tender  sea  woman,  "  as  mild  and  as  beautiful  as 
the  moon,"  the  daughter  of  a  king  of  the  watery 
realms,  upon  whom  Dick  Fitzgerald  puts  his 
comeder,^  and  whom  he  persuades  to  be  his  wife. 

Not  the  least  strange  of  the  supernatural 
creatures  of  The  Fairy  Legends  are  the  company 
of  headless  phantoms.  Phantom  coaches  with 
headless  drivers,  headless  horses,  and  headless 
passengers  spin  over  moonlit  roads,  and  dare- 
devil mortals,  on  their  way  home  from  late 
nights  at  the  "  public,"  meet  headless  huntsmen 
on  headless  nags,  and  ride  them  cross-country 
races  by  the  light  of  the  moon. 

The  other  novelists  of  the  gentry  who  write 
of  the  peasantry  do  not  compare  favorably  with 
Croker  on  the  score  of  literary  merit  or  general 
interest.  Mrs.  Thomas  Crofton  Croker  is  now 
known  to  be  the  author  of  Barney  Malioney 
(1832),  which  at  her  desire  was  published  under 
her  husband's  name.  Barney  Malioney  has  an 
Irishman  for  a  hero,  an  Irish  peasant,  who  con- 
ceals under  a  vacant  countenance  and  blundering 
1  Anglic6,  "  couie  hither." 


THE  NOVELISTS   OF   THE   GENTRY  111 

demeanor  shrewdness,  quick  wit,  and  despite  a 
touch  of  rascality,  real  kindness  of  heart.  The 
type  is  a  familiar  one  in  the  novels,  the  natural 
product  of  the  conditions  of  Irish  life  in  the 
past,  when  the  peasant,  powerless  under  the 
pressure  of  tyranny  and  dependence,  developed, 
as  a  kind  of  necessity  of  self-preservation,  an 
extraordinary  tact  in  dealing  with  his  masters, 
and  remarkable  powers  of  subtlety  and  deceit. 
Samuel  Lover,  who  began  writing  a  few  years 
after  the  appearance  of  the  Crokers'  books,  may 
have  found  suggestions  for  his  short  stories  in 
Croker's  Fairy  Legends^  and  may  even  have  had 
Barney  Mahoney's  buffooneries  in  mind  when 
he  wrote  Handy  Andy.  Lover,  in  his  first 
book.  Legends  and.  Stories  of  Ireland  (1831), 
works  the  vein  that  Croker  had  opened  so 
successfully.  Lover's  father  was  a  stock-broker 
in  Dublin,  where  Samuel  was  born  in  1797. 
Lover  was  a  jack-of-all-trades  —  musician,  song 
writer,  painter,  poet,  and  virtuoso,  as  well  as 
novelist.  Naturally  of  a  happy  temperament, 
he  carried  into  manhood  a  boy's  light-hearted- 
ness  and  love  of  fun.  The  soul  of  sociabil- 
ity, he  was  never  so  much  himself  as  when 
the    centre    of   a   merry  company.      He    made 


112  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

one  of  a  set  of  droll  fellows  who  were  ever 
ready  to  cater  to  Dublin's  taste  for  amuse- 
ment, who  found  a  market  for  their  waggery, 
and  a  welcome  everywhere,  and  who  left  society 
in  their  debt  for  a  good  share  of  entertainment. 
In  singing  a  song,  in  anecdote,  and  in  small  talk 
he  surpassed  most  of  his  rivals.  Sir  Charles 
Gavan  Duffy,  who  met  him  in  Nice,  gives  a 
correct  impression  of  the  man  when  he  says  : 
"  In  manner  and  bearing  he  was  a  superb  Jack- 
een  (Anglice,  cockney).  His  face  comical,  but 
not  plastic  or  expressive.  It  is  the  face  of  a 
droll. "  ^  Indeed  both  cockney  ism  and  the  broad, 
easy  drollery  of  the  Merry  Andrew  were  in  the 
grain  with  Lover.  Lover  recalls  Lever  in  his 
passion  for  sociability,  his  relentless  pursuit  of 
fun,  his  ambition  to  be  entertaining,  and  his 
avoidance  of  the  serious  and  disagreeable  sides 
of  life  ;  but  he  lacked  Lever's  masculine  force, 
frank  high  spirit,  and  the  hel  air  which,  despite 
noise  and  swagger,  he  always  had  about  him. 

Lover's  Legends  and  Stories  of  Ireland  is  a 

collection  of  short  tales  and  character  sketches 

that  touch  lightly,  gayly,  and  superficially  upon 

peasant  life.     Some  deal  with  popular  super- 

1  My  Life  in  Tioo  Hemispheres,  vol.  II,  p.  103. 


THE  NOVELISTS   OF  THE  GENTRY  113 

stitions;  some  present  Irish  types,  as  priests, 
porters,  carmen,  and  fishermen  ;  others  are 
illustrations  of  popular  proverbs :  and  still 
others  embody  national  traits  in  short  stories 
—  among  the  best  in  this  last  kind  the  legend 
of  the  doting  old  King  O'Toole  and  St.  Kevin, 
in  which  it  is  told  how  that  most  Irish  saint, 
with  the  true  national  sagacity  in  agrarian  trans- 
actions, "  done  the  ould  king  out  iv  his  property 
for  the  glory  of  God." 

In  the  hero  of  Rory  O'More  (1837),  the  first 
of  his  novels  properly  speaking.  Lover  has 
presented  a  character  that  combines  the  more 
amiable  traits  of  the  young  Irish  peasant  — 
honesty,  faithfulness,  cleverness,  courage,  and 
good-humor,  and  Rory  is  perhaps  the  most 
engaging  of  the  peasant  lads  of  the  novelists  of 
the  gentry.  As  the  peasant  lover  he  is  a  com- 
plete success,  and  in  his  courtship  of  the  fair 
Kathleen  there  is  a  simple  grace  and  homely 
tenderness  quite  idyllic.  Mory  O'More  strikes 
the  patriotic  note  also.  The  story  opens  just 
before  the  Rebellion  of  '98,  and  closes  just  after 
it.  The  personage  who  divides  the  attention 
with  Rory  is  a  young  patriot,  a  gentleman  of 
Anglo-Norman   stock,    who   has   served   under 


114  IRISH  LIFE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 

Bonaparte,  and  in  this  story  is  a  medium  of 
communication  between  General  Hoche  and  the 
United  Irishmen.  The  novel  does  not  go  deep 
into  the  plans  and  methods  of  the  rebels,  nor 
will  its  presentation  of  the  negotiations  with  the 
French  make  it  a  document  upon  these  matters. 
Lover,  with  his  not  too  fervent  patriotism,  does 
not  make  his  mark  as  a  patriotic  novelist. 

The  hero  of  Handy  Andy  (1842)  is  a  raw, 
green,  unmannered  fellow  from  the  poorest  of 
the  peasantry,  Andy  Rooney  by  name,  who  by 
virtue  of  an  inveterate  tendency  to  blunder  is 
dubbed,  in  irony,  Handy  Andy.  He  is  meant 
to  exemplify  that  section  of  his  countrymen 
whose  thoughts  are  supposed  to  be  always  in  a 
state  of  mixture  and  confusion.  Those  "  whose 
lungs  are  tickle  o'  the  sere  "  will  find  entertain- 
ment in  this  story  of  Andy's  blunderings  and 
buffoonery.  Among  other  transactions  of  a  like 
kind,  it  is  recorded  how  the  hero,  assisting  his 
master's  butler  at  a  dinner  party,  lost  control 
of  the  soda-water  bottle  which  he  was  opening, 
sliot  the  cork  in  his  master's  eye,  and  poured 
the  soda-water  upon  liis  mistress's  back ;  how, 
when  told  to  put  a  half-dozen  of  champagne  on 
ice^  he  opened  the  bottles  long  before  dinner. 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   GENTRY  115 

emptied  the  contents  into  a  tub  of  cracked  ice, 
and,  when  the  champagne  was  called  for,  served 
it  tub,  ice,  and  all ;  or  how,  on  another  occasion, 
he  crashed  through  the  glass  roof  of  a  conserva- 
tory, carrying  with  him  in  his  course  an  ava- 
lanche of  flower-pots,  and  landing  in  the  midst 
of  the  debris,  embowered  in  the  branches  of 
crushed  geraniums  and  hydrangeas.  The  story 
of  Handy  Andy  concludes  with  the  account  of 
his  wedding  trip,  in  which,  as  a  last  misadven- 
ture, he  upsets  the  boat,  and  plunges  his  bride, 
himself,  and  the  boatman  in  the  beautiful  lakes 
of  Killarney. 

Besides  the  scenes  of  peasant  life  in  which 
Andy  is  the  central  figure,  this  novel  presents 
scenes  from  the  life  of  the  harum-scarum  Irish 
gentry  much  in  Lever's  way.  Duels,  abduc- 
tions, uproarious  dinners,  a  contested  election, 
and  a  series  of  rough  practical  jokes  upon  a 
lisping  English  dandy  from  Dublin  Castle,  who 
comes  down  to  the  country  to  show  his  finesse 
in  conducting  election  movements,  are  among 
the  incidents.  Among  the  characters  are  a  pre- 
posterously drunken  and  passionate  squire  of 
the  familiar  type,  waging  the  usual  defensive 
war  against   the   bailiffs,  and  a  miscellaneous 


116  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

company  of  peasants,  duellists,  hedge-priests, 
hedge-schoolmasters,  beggars,  and  illicit  dis- 
tillers. 

Treasure  Trove  (1844),  the  last  and  least 
effective  of  Lover's  novels,  is  a  story  of  the 
Irish  brigade. 

The  most  painstaking  and  serious  of  the 
novelists  of  the  gentry  who  write  of  the  peas- 
ants is  Mrs.  Anna  Maria  HaU  (1800-1881), 
whose  work  in  Irish  fiction  was  but  one  outlet 
of  her  zeal  for  moral  and  social  edification.  In 
Ireland  she  found  a  field  ripe  for  her  talents  in 
these  directions.  In  this  didactic  turn  of  mind 
she  resembles  Miss  Edgeworth,  though  witliout 
that  lady's  sprightly  wit.  Mrs.  Hall  belonged 
to  an  Anglo-Irish  family  that  had  exhausted 
land  and  resources  in  the  ways  that  prevailed 
among  the  Irish  country  gentry.  She  married 
an  Englishman,  and  passed  most  of  her  life  in 
England. 

Of  Mrs.  Hall's  endless  productions  (she  wrote 
constantly  for  the  magazines  and  annuals)  the 
Sketches  of  Irish  Character  (1829),  Liglits  and 
Shadows  of  Irish  Life  (1838),  and  Stories  of  the 
Irish  Peasantry  (1840),  collections  of  short 
stories  and  sketches,  are  designed  to  point  out 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  TIIE   GENTRY  117 

habits,  prejudices,  and  pursuits  that  appeared  to 
be  roots  of  evil  in  the  condition  of  the  peasant, 
and  which,  though  in  themselves  neither  vicious 
nor  injurious,  lead  commonly  to  vice  or  misery. 
These  three  books  enter  in  detail  into  the  do- 
mestic economy  of  the  peasant  — the  evils  of 
drink,  laziness,  and  thriftlessness,  those  result- 
ing from  early  and  improvident  marriages,  the 
itch  of  the  Irishman  to  be  forever  going  to  law, 
and  the  like. 

TJie  Whitehoy  (1845),  a  novel,  tells  of  the  ex- 
periences in  Ireland  of  a  young  Englishman, 
who  has  just  fallen  heir  to  an  estate  in  the 
county  of  Cork.  He  is  a  hero  of  the  priggish 
type  dear  to  the  heart  of  Miss  Edge  worth. 
His  qualifications  for  his  duties  as  an  Irish  land- 
lord are  a  love  for  the  romance  of  Irish  history, 
a  love  for  the  poetry  of  Thomas  Moore,  and 
experience  in  the  management  of  his  English 
estates.  He  comes  to  his  Irish  possessions  with 
the  most  beneficent  intentions.  On  his  voyage 
to  Ireland  he  sits  on  the  deck  in  the  moonlight 
and  dreams  himself  the  benefactor  of  the  gen- 
erous and  long-suffering  people  over  whom  he  is 
to  rule.  In  his  mind's  eye  he  sees  the  wretched, 
windowless,  chimneyless  cabins,  flanked  by  the 


118  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

usual  dung-heap  and  pool  of  green  water,  give 
place  to  rose-covered  cottages  in  the  English 
style.  At  one  end  of  the  smiling  village  tlie 
church  spire  rises ;  at  the  other  end  the  cross  of 
a  chapel.  Under  his  hospitable  mahogany  priest 
and  parson  are  to  put  their  legs,  and  pass  pleas- 
ant evenings  in  peace  and  good-will.  The 
dream  is  dispelled  when  he  reaches  his  estate. 
The  Whiteboys  are  "  up,"  and  actively  engaged 
in  punishing  landlords  and  middlemen,  and  in 
settling  private  grudges.  They  are  burning 
buildings,  shooting  their  enemies  from  behind 
hedges,  abducting  young  women,  and  the  like. 
The  postboy  is  murdered  by  night.  The  house 
of  a  bad  middleman  is  burned,  with  the  idea  of 
roasting  the  rascally  inmate  alive  in  the  flames 
of  his  own  dwelling.  He  escapes  from  this  fate 
only  to  be  hurled  into  the  sea  and  drowned. 
To  cap  the  climax,  this  young  Englishman 
himself  is  abducted  by  a  band  of  Whiteboys, 
and  is  happy  to  escape  with  liis  life.  The 
military  and  gentry  ride  over  the  country  in 
parties,  burning  and  shooting  by  way  of  re- 
prisal, and  occasionally  engaging  in  bloody 
conflicts  with  bands  of  peasants.  It  is  in  this 
atmosphere  of  murder  and  sudden  death,  rancor 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   GENTRY  119 

and  prejudice,  that  the  young  Englishman  sets 
about  his  benevolent  schemes.  The  task  of 
taming  the  savage  Whiteboy,  and  reforming  the 
characters,  manners,  and  customs  of  the  wild 
Irish  peasant,  he  performs  with  a  celerity  and 
a  measure  of  success  more  often  obtained  in 
didactic  novels  than  in  the  real  world.  The 
leader  of  the  Whiteboys  in  this  story  is  an  im- 
poverished young  Catholic  gentleman  who  has 
inherited  a  hatred  of  the  institutions  that  op- 
pressed his  co-religionists  and  ruined  him  and 
his  family.  His  poverty  has  brought  him,  in 
manner  of  life,  near  to  the  peasantry.  They 
look  to  him  as  their  leader.  Deep  sympathy 
for  their  troubles  and  a  determination  to  pro- 
tect them  against  the  rapacity  and  injustice  of 
landlords  and  bad  agents,  have  led  him  to  put 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  Whiteboys  of  his 
district,  as  the  only  means  of  effecting  this 
purpose. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  NOVELISTS   OF   THE  PEASANTRY 

At  the  close  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  a  group  of  young  writers  began 
to  appear  whose  works  were  more  national  and 
more  worthy  of  being  considered  as  an  elucida- 
tion of  Irish  life  and  the  character  of  the  race 
than  those  of  any  previous  novelist,  except  per- 
haps Miss  Edgeworth.  This  is  the  group  of 
novelists  of  the  peasantry.  They  were  all 
of  Celtic  stock,  and  bred  in  the  Catholic  faith. 
At  this  time  O'Connell's  agitation  had  awak- 
ened the  Irish  Catholics,  and  there  is  doubt- 
less a  connection  between  this  little  outburst  of 
literary  energy  and  the  repeal  of  Catholic  disa- 
bilities. 

There  is  a  strong  contrast  between  the  careers 
of  these  novelists  of  the  peasantry  and  the  gentry 
novelists.     Lady  Morgan  in  her  tlieatrical  and 

120 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF   THE  PEASANTRY       121 

literary  Bohemia  or  in  Belgravia,  Maxwell  and 
his  sporting  life,  Lever's  high-living  and  gay 
company,  the  comfortable  lives  of  Miss  Edge- 
worth,  the  Crokers  and  Mrs.  Hall,  and  Lover 
drolling  it  in  the  drawing-rooms  of  Dublin  or 
London^make  a  series  of  pictures  quite  different 
from  that  of  John  Banim's  harassed,  hand-to- 
mouth  existence.  Griffin's  fight  for  bread  and 
fame,  and  the  necessitous  career  of  Carleton, 
struggling  for  education  and  a  livelihood.  With 
the  novelists  of  the  peasantry  the  devil-may-care 
temper  that  gave  the  novels  of  the  gentry  their 
characteristic  tone  no  longer  rules.  They  can- 
not take  hold  of  life  in  the  same  free,  off-hand 
manner. 

John  Banim,  the  first  of  the  group,  was  born  in 
1798,  the  year  of  the  Rebellion,  and  the  same  in 
which  Croker  and  Carleton  first  saw  the  light, 
in  Kilkenny,  where  his  father  —  a  bit  of  old 
Ireland  in  his  testy  temper,  his  warm  heart,  and 
his  love  of  a  social  glass  —  was  engaged  in  the 
double  occupation  of  farmer  and  shopkeeper,  in 
the  latter  capacity  a  dealer  in  the  necessaries  of  a 
sportsman's  and  angler's  outfit.  His  father  was 
of  the  "  strong  farmer  "  class,  that  is,  somewhere 
between  the  thriving  peasant  and  the  gentleman 


122  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

farmer.  He  kept  a  pair  of  blood-horses,  and  in 
Banim's  boyhood  (though  reverses  soon  came) 
was  in  easy  circumstances.  John's  formal  edu- 
cation began  under  an  eccentric  pedagogue, 
who,  by  a  weakness  for  drink  and  other  foibles, 
could  rival  the  hedge-schoolmasters  of  Carleton's 
tales  ;  it  was  continued  at  a  preparator}^  school 
at  Kilkenny,  and  ended  there  with  his  fifteenth 
year.  In  the  same  year  he  left  home  for  Dublin 
to  study  drawing,  returning  two  years  later  to 
support  himself  in  a  school  position  as  drawing- 
master.  He  shortly  formed  a  romantic  and  un- 
fortunate attachment  for  one  of  his  pupils.  He 
was  not  thought  eligible  by  the  young  lady's 
father,  his  suit  was  scornfully  rejected,  and  all 
communication  forbidden  between  the  lovers. 
Under  the  agitation  of  the  separation  the  deli- 
cate, high-strung  girl  became  ill  and  died. 
Banim,  intensely  emotional  by  nature,  aban- 
doned himself  to  the  tide  of  grief.  Exposure 
to  bad  weather  at  the  time  of  the  funeral  and 
after,  when  he  wandered  for  days  careless  and 
scarce  conscious  of  his  whereabouts,  together 
with  the  agony  of  his  sorrow,  resulted  in  a 
collapse  of  body  and  mind  from  wliich  it  look 
months  to  recover;  this  planted  the  seeds  of  a  dis- 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   PEASANTRY       123 

order  that  eventually  brought  him  to  his  death. 
On  his  partial  recovery  he  resolved  to  give  up 
art  for  literature,  went  to  Dublin,  and  half 
starved  there  for  two  years.  But  in  spite  of 
struggles  the  Dublin  experiment  ended  prosper- 
ously. He  wrote  a  tragedy,  Damon  and  Pythias, 
that  was  accepted  by  Macready  and  put  upon 
the  stage  at  Covent  Garden  with  triumphant 
success.  This  was  in  1821.  A  visit  home  fol- 
lowed the  success  of  the  tragedy,  during  which 
he  married  and  planned  a  fresh  literary  cam- 
paign. London  was  thought  a  better  field  than 
Dublin  for  his  talents,  and  in  1822,  with  a  few 
pounds  in  his  pocket  and  accompanied  by  his 
young  wife,  he  entered  upon  the  struggle  of 
life  there  without  a  single  friend  or  even  an 
introductory  letter. 

The  illness  of  his  wife  after  their  arrival  in 
London  soon  exhausted  their  slender  store,  and 
necessity  drove  Banim  to  continued  literary 
labor  beyond  his  strength.  At  this  time,  when 
circumstances  called  for  all  his  health  and 
energy,  anxiety  and  excessive  toil  induced  a 
terrible  illness,  a  return  of  the  racking  pains 
that  had  tortured  him  for  months  after  the 
death  of  his  first  love.     From  this  to  the  end  of 


124  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

his  life  Banim  fought  his  battle  with  a  broken 
sword.  He  worked  on  with  set  teeth,  besieged 
and  prostrated  by  illness  after  illness.  He  scarce 
wrote  three  pages  of  his  stories,  he  tells  his 
brother,  free  from  "  wringing,  burning,  ago- 
nizing pain."  The  story  of  his  life  from  his 
arrival  in  London  to  his  death  is  a  story  of  toil, 
disappointment,  and  disaster,  with  painful  ill- 
ness as  an  almost  constant  attendant.  When 
only  thirty-one  years  old,  his  health  was  so 
feeble  that  change  of  air  and  scene  was  dechired 
to  be  his  only  hope.  In  1829  he  left  London 
for  Boulogne-sur-Mer.  There  he  was  stricken 
with  paralysis  of  the  lower  limbs.  When  in 
1832  cholera  was  epidemic  in  Boulogne,  the 
paralyzed  man  was  attacked  by  it,  recovered, 
relapsed,  and  again  fought  his  way  back  to  life. 
This  left  him  ever  after  weak  and  shattered  in 
body,  and  for  a  time  in  mind.  At  last,  ballled 
and  broken,  he  owned  himself  defeated  in  the 
struggle,  and  wrote  for  help  to  his  literary 
friends.  And  this  prostration  came  just  as 
fame  and  fortune  began  to  smile  upon  him. 
The  three  series  of  the  OHara  Tales  (1825, 
1826,  1829),  written  by  him  and  his  brotluu- 
Michael  in  collaboration,  had  been  entirely  sue- 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE    PEASANTRY       125 

cessfiil,  and  his  novel  The  Boyne  Water  (1825) 
had  been  well  received.  But  at  the  moment 
when  the  road  for  the  first  time  seemed  smooth 
before  him,  his  literary  work  was  done.  The 
appeal  to  his  brethren  of  the  pen  had  not  been 
in  vain.  Subscriptions  from  literary  men,  a 
benefit  performance  in  Dublin,  a  purse  from  his 
fellow-citizens  of  Kilkenny,  and  other  generous 
gifts  kept  him  beyond  want  for  the  rest  of  his 
life.  In  1835  he  returned  to  Kilkenny  to  die. 
His  brother  Michael,  who  met  him  in  Dublin 
to  take  him  home,  was  shocked  at  the  ravages 
that  disease  and  wasting  toil  had  wrought,  and 
describes  him  —  he  was  then  in  his  thirty- 
seventh  year  —  as  "  a  meagre,  attenuated,  almost 
white-haired  old  man."  After  seven  more  pain- 
ful years  John  Banim  died  at  Kilkenny  in  1842. 
Michael  Banim,  John's  eldest  brother,  who 
has  appeared  in  the  background  of  this  sketch, 
was  born  at  Kilkenny  in  1796.  His  education 
was  the  same  as  John's,  except  that  for  a  time 
he  took  up  the  study  of  law,  only  to  abandon  it 
shortly,  however,  because  of  a  reverse  of  fortune 
that  befell  his  father.  With  the  self-sacrifice 
that  marked  all  his  relations  with  father  and 
Ijrother,  he  devoted  himself  to  unravelling  the 


126  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

tangled  threads  of  his  father's  business.  In 
1825  he  wrote,  at  John's  suggestion,  a  tale 
for  The  Tales  of  the  O^Hara  Family.  This  was 
Crohoore  of  the  Bill-hook^  one  of  the  most  popu- 
lar of  the  series,  and  he  continued  throughout 
his  brother's  literary  life  to  publish  jointly  with 
him.  After  a  series  of  ups  and  downs  of  for- 
tune, he  died,  an  old  man  of  seventy-eight,  in 
1874. 

The  first  of  John  Banim's  novels,  considered 
in  their  historical  sequence,  is  The  Boyne  Water, 
a  novel  after  the  manner  of  Scott,  in  which  the 
thread  of  a  double  love  story  is  followed  through 
numberless  thrilling  adventures,  with  the  siege 
of  Londonderry,  the  battle  of  the  Boyne,  and 
the  siege  of  Limerick  as  the  great  features. 
The  story  opens  before  the  outbreak  of  hos- 
tilities between  James  and  William.  Parties 
of  Protestant  gentry,  wrathful  and  dismayed, 
dining  together  in  Dublin,  tap  their  swords 
significantly,  and  denounce  Tyrconnel's  policy 
that  is  sweeping  Protestants  from  the  army, 
civic  offices,  the  bench,  and  the  bar,  and  striv- 
ing to  substitute  a  Catholic  for  a  Protestant 
ascendency.  Frantic  parsons  declaim  against 
open     mass-houses    where    before     there    was 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   PEASANTRY      127 

godly  silence,  against  tolerated  priests,  Papist 
prelates  at  court,  and  the  imminence  of  uni- 
versal Popery.  All  hands  contemplate  with 
well-grounded  terror  the  spectacle  of  the  Eng- 
lish ascendency  for  the  moment  abolished,  the 
native  Irish  restored  to  their  rights  and  ready 
to  retaliate  upon  those  who  had  trampled  upon 
them  since  Cromwell's  time.  The  love  plot 
turns  on  a  typical  dilemma  growing  out  of  the 
conditions  of  the  day,  when  religious  and  polit- 
ical feeling  ran  high,  and  the  nation  arrayed 
itself,  Protestant  against  Catholic,  in  opposing 
ranks.  There  are  twin  heroes  and  heroines. 
Evelyn,  a  young  Protestant  gentleman,  becomes 
engaged  to  Eva  M'Donnell,  a  young  Catholic 
lady.  The  young  lady's  brother,  Edmund 
M'Donnell,  engages  himself  to  Evelyn's  sister. 
The  double  marriage  is  being  celebrated  when, 
in  the  midst  of  the  ceremony,  a  messenger 
bursts  in  with  the  announcement,  "William  the 
Deliverer  has  landed."  In  the  excitement  of 
the  moment  the  ceremony  is  suspended;  the 
parsons  and  priests,  who  were  officiating  to- 
gether at  the  mixed  wedding,  break  out  in  fierce 
recriminations  ;  the  parties  to  the  wedding  are 
drawn  into  the  angry  altercation.     The  Protes- 


128  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

tant  sister  leaves  the  Catholic  lover's  arms  for 
the  protection  of  her  brother,  and  in  like  man- 
ner the  Catholic  sister  takes  her  place  by  her 
brother's  side.  M'Donnell  hastens  to  join 
James's  army ;  the  Protestant  brother  and 
sister  make  the  best  of  their  way  to  London- 
derry, the  Protestant  refuge  in  the  north. 
This  flight  gives  occasion  for  a  picture  of  the 
country  at  this  critical  moment.  The  roads 
are  astir  with  Protestants,  gentle  and  simple, 
hastening  to  the  northern  towns  where  the 
Williamites  were  to  stand  at  bay,  and  passing 
these  are  parties  of  Catholics  hurrying  in  an 
opposite  direction. 

The  interest  in  the  book  as  a  love  story  soon 
fades  away,  and  attention  is  centred  upon 
battles  and  sieges  and  the  historical  personages 
that  appear  upon  the  stage.  The  whole  story 
of  the  long  siege  of  Derry  is  told  from  the  time 
King  James  and  his  army  sat  down  before  the 
closed  gates  to  the  day  the  English  ship  broke 
the  boom  across  the  river,  and  the  besiegers 
were  forced  sullenly  to  withdraw.  The  horrors 
of  the  siege  are  not  spared.  The  Protestants 
are  even  reduced  to  feed  upon  carrion,  and  die 
in  the  streets  of   hunger   and   the  fever  that 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE   TEASANTKY       129 

comes  of  it.  The  Rev.  George  Walker,  the 
soul  of  the  fighting  men  of  the  city,  is  always 
well  to  the  front.  Clad  in  his  clericals,  armed, 
and  with  a  military  sash,  he  now  leads  a  sally 
from  the  walls,  now  prays  for  victory  in  the 
churches. 

The  battle  scenes  at  the  Boyne  are  designed 
to  be  the  feature  of  the  book.  All  through 
them  there  are  interesting  glimpses  of  the  oddly 
sorted  companions  in  arms  that  made  up  the 
army  of  James  —  the  ragged,  wild  Irish  regi- 
ments, in  motley  uniforms,  bare-legged,  and 
armed  with  rusty  pikes  and  firelocks,  in  strange 
contrast  to  the  bright  chivalry  of  their  French 
allies.  The  careful  descriptions  of  the  battle- 
ground are  the  result  of  a  tour  made  by  Banim 
especially  to  familiarize  himself  with  its  to- 
pography. The  figure  of  William  on  his  white 
horse,  stern,  silent,  and  in  person  commanding 
and  inspiring  his  troops,  is  contrasted  with  that 
of  the  incapable  James,  in  the  churchyard  on 
Dunore  hill,  lending  a  willing  ear  to  the  French 
ofiicer  who  counsels  flight  for  France,  while 
Sarsfeld  vainly  urges  his  majesty  to  head  in 
person  a  last  charge,  and  strike  with  his  own 
arm  for  his  triple  crown. 


130  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH    FICTION 

The  chief  incidents  of  The  Last  Baron  of  Or  ana 
(1826)  fall  in  the  years  just  following  the  events 
of  The  Boyne  Water.  The  novel  is  both  an 
illustration  of  the  working  of  the  penal  laws 
upon  the  Catholics  within  their  jurisdiction 
and  a  picture  of  the  life  of  a  class  of  Catholics 
who  lived  in  open  defiance  of  them.  With  the 
first  chapter  the  story  plunges  into  the  midst  of 
the  battle  of  Aughrim.  Sir  Redmund  O'Burke, 
an  officer  in  James's  army,  is  prompted  by  a  sol- 
dier's admiration  of  courage  to  save  the  life  of 
Captain  Pendergast  of  William's  army  from  the 
swords  of  James's  troopers.  The  tide  of  the 
battle  then  sweeps  the  two  apart,  to  meet  again 
as  William's  army  wins  the  day.  Sir  Redmund 
lies  mortally  wounded,  and  with  his  last  breath 
asks  Pendergast  to  protect  his  young  son  who 
has  survived  the  battle.  In  obedience  to  the 
dying  request,  Pendergast  finds  O'Burke's  son, 
and  takes  him  to  his  home  in  the  north.  With 
the  youth  go  a  priest,  his  tutor,  and  a  faithful 
Catholic  retainer.  En  route  to  the  north  they 
stop  in  Dublin.  As  in  The  Boyne  Water^  so  here 
the  political  temper  of  the  time  is  reflected  in 
the  sentiments  voiced  at  gatherings  of  Protes- 
tant gentlemen  where  Pendergast  is  a  guest. 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   PEASANTRY       131 

He,  with  three  Catholics  now  dependent  on  him 
for  protection,  listens  eagerly  to  hear  the  feel- 
ing of  the  victors  regarding  the  fate  of  the 
Catholics.  Every  voice  is  raised  against  the 
treaty  of  Limerick  as  a  measure  of  unmerited 
leniency  toward  the  vanquished  and  of  un- 
grateful injustice  to  the  supporters  of  King 
William. 

In  due  time,  the  persecuting  laws  are  passed 
against  the  Catholics,  and  Pendergast  must 
either  keep  O'Burke  uneducated  and  forbid 
him  the  ministrations  of  his  church,  or  break 
the  law  of  the  land  that  made  education  for 
a  Catholic  illegal  and  forbade  a  Catholic  priest 
to  exercise  his  functions.  He  chooses  the  latter 
course,  and  breaks  the  laws  for  his  young 
friend's  sake.  O'Burke  is  daily  tutored  by  the 
priest,  and  in  a  hut  a  little  removed  from  the 
house  the  mass  is  regularly  celebrated.  Moved 
by  a  private  spite  an  enemy,  who  knows  of 
these  proceedings,  swears  out  a  warrant  against 
O'Burke,  the  priest,  and  the  faithful  retainer 
of  O'Burke,  who  is  a  Catholic,  and  whom 
Pendergast  has  made  his  gamekeeper,  and  also 
against  some  Catholic  gentlemen  who  happen 
at  the  time  to  be  Pendergast's  guests.     The 


132  IRISH  LIFE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 

officer  of  the  law  visits  the  house,  and  orders 
tlie  household  before  him.  First  laying  down 
five  pounds,  he  demands  O'Burke's  sleek  hunter, 
for  by  law  a  Protestant  could  always  claim  the 
horses  of  a  Catholic  by  paying  five  pounds 
a  head,  and  on  the  same  basis  takes  the  hand- 
some coach-horses  of  Pendergast's  guests.  He 
then  demands  the  discharge  of  Pendergast's 
gamekeeper,  who,  as  a  Catholic,  illegally  held 
the  position.  All  the  Catholics  are  then  fined 
in  accordance  with  another  statute  which  pro- 
vided that  all  good  men  must  attend  Sabbath 
services  of  the  Established  Church  once  a  week, 
on  penalty  of  a  fine  for  each  absence.  The 
suspects  are  asked  how  often  they  have  attended 
public  worship  in  a  church  of  the  established 
form.  All  answer,  "Never."  Accordingly  the 
fine  is  reckoned  from  the  time  of  the  passing  of 
the  statute  six  years  back  up  to  date.  The  bailiff 
pays  his  respects  last  to  the  priest.  When  the 
latter  finds  himself  discovered,  knowing  death 
to  be  the  penalty  of  exercising  his  office,  he  fells 
the  bailiff  with  a  swinging  blow,  dashes  through 
the  window,  and  escapes. 

Such  is  the  illustration  in  this  fiction  of  the 
penal   laws  at  \v(.)rk    upon   tliose  within    their 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   PEASANTRY      133 

jurisdiction.  The  career  of  the  last  Baron  of 
Crana,  the  personage  who  gives  the  book  its 
name,  represents  the  career  of  many  Catholics, 
some  of  the  better  sort,  who  defied  the  laws  and 
warred  against  them. 

At  the  close  of  the  civil  war,  the  young  Baron 
of  Crana  knows  that  his  estates  will  be  confis- 
cated, on  the  ground  of  his  having  held  a  com- 
mission in  James's  army.  In  reckless  defiance  of 
a  condition  of  things  in  which  he  and  his  Catholic 
brethren  are  so  outrageously  treated  he  joins  a 
band  of  Rapparees,  and  becomes  their  leader. 
The  Rapparees,  so  called  from  their  carrying 
raparies  or  half -pikes,  were  wild  bands  of  plun- 
derers, originally  recruited  from  the  Catholics 
who  had  fought  for  King  James,  and  who,  after 
the  termination  of  hostilities,  continued  to  exist 
as  freebooters  and  gentlemen  of  the  road.  To 
them  it  was  a  virtue  to  break  the  laws,  and  rob 
and  plunder  the  officers  of  a  usurping  king,  the 
persecutor  of  them  and  their  faith.  It  was  their 
delight  to  rob  the  rich  Sassenachs,  and  to  empty 
the  money-bags  of  tithe-proctors  and  tax  gath- 
erers as  they  returned  from  their  rounds  laden 
with  King  William's  dues.  The  Rapparees, 
generally  speaking   recruited   from  the   lower 


134  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

ranks  of  society,  had  also  a  scattering  of  ruined 
Catholic  gentlemen  —  some  even  of  the  Baron 
of  Crana's  pretensions — who  took  refuge  among 
them,  preferring,  for  one  reason  or  another,  the 
life  of  outlaws  at  home  to  military  service  in 
the  armies  of  France  or  Spain.  The  leaders  of 
these  bands  sometimes  rivalled  Robin  Hood  in 
daring,  courage,  and  generosity,  and,  like  him, 
were  the  darlings  of  the  poor,  whom  they  dis- 
dained to  molest.  It  was  as  a  leader  of  these 
bands  that  the  last  Baron  of  Crana,  ruined  by 
his  devotion  to  the  cause  of  James,  unsettled  by 
the  wars,  without  home  or  occupation,  wound 
up  his  career. 

In  Tlie  Conformists  (1829)  Banim  again  illus- 
trates the  practical  working  of  the  penal  laws. 
Hugh  Darcy,  a  Catholic  country  gentleman,  is 
confronted  with  the  problem  of  educating  his 
two  sons  in  the  face  of  the  laws  against  Catliolic 
education.  Tutors  fear  prosecution,  and  will 
not  risk  teaching  the  boys,  so  Mr.  Darcy  resolves 
to  make  a  shift  to  teach  them  himself.  But  he 
loves  his  ease,  soon  tires  of  racking  his  brains 
over  rusty  Latin  and  forgotten  mathematics, 
and  relinquishes  the  effort,  to  spend  the  even- 
ings more  comfortably  over  the  botth'.     Making 


Till-:   NOVELISTS   OF  THE    PEASANTRY      135 

the  care  of  tlie  estate  his  excuse,  he  leaves  the 
education  of  the  boys  in  their  mother's  hands. 
A  Catholic  neighbor,  who  can  hnd  no  one  to 
teach  his  daughters,  begs  Mrs.  Darcy,  as  a  spe- 
cial kindness,  to  allow  them  to  share  with  the 
boys  the  advantages  of  her  instruction.  The 
request  granted,  two  bright  young  ladies  be- 
come the  fellow-students  of  her  sons,  and  this 
situation  leads  to  a  collision  with  the  penal  laws. 
Dan,  the  3^ounger  son,  clever  with  rod  and 
gun  but  a  dunce  at  his  books,  is  ashamed  to 
display  his  backwardness  before  the  young 
ladies,  and  to  make  up  for  lost  time  betakes 
himself  surreptitiously  to  a  hedge-schoolmaster 
who,  hounded  out  of  his  profession  by  the  penal 
laws,  earned  his  bread  as  a  laborer  upon  a 
neighboring  farm.  This  man,  overcoming  his 
fears,  consents  to  help  Dan  out,  and,  in  a  lonely 
spot,  screened  by  a  hedge,  they  daily  toil  with 
book  and  slate.  But  the  plan  ends  in  disaster. 
The  officers  of  the  law  get  wind  of  the  illegal 
education,  and  one  fine  day  a  bailiff  bursts 
rudely  upon  the  studious  seclusion  of  the  pair. 
The  hedge-schoolmaster  gives  leg-bail  and 
escapes,  but  young  Dan  is  dragged  off  to  jail  to 
expiate  his  crime. 


186  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

The  incident  that  concludes  this  story  shows 
the  operation  of  one  of  the  most  outrageous  and 
intolerable  provisions  of  the  code  —  that  which 
makes  the  son  of  a  Catholic  who  conforms  the 
legal  heir  to  his  father's  estate.  On  the  son's 
turning  Protestant,  not  only  does  he  become 
legal  heir,  but  the  father  is  not  allowed,  from 
the  moment  the  son  reads  his  recantation,  to 
sell  or  mortgage  any  part  of  his  property.  Here 
the  law  is  brought  into  operation  in  this  way. 
Dan  has  become  engaged.  An  ingenious  con- 
spiracy of  his  enemies  forces  him  to  believe 
that  father  and  mother,  brother  and  mistress 
have  combined  against  him  in  an  unnatural  plot 
involving  the  breaking  of  his  engagement  and 
the  marriage  of  his  brother  to  his  lady.  Dan 
determines  to  take  his  revenge  with  a  weapon 
as  cruel  and  unnatural  as  those  his  family  are 
turning,  he  believes,  against  himself.  The  penal 
law  above  referred  to  is  ready  to  his  hand.  He 
resolves  to  turn  Protestant,  and  thus  revenge 
himself  at  once  upon  father,  brother,  and  mis- 
tress, by  securing  the  vvliole  patrimony  to  him- 
self. The  story  is  no  less  successful  as  an 
illustration  of  the  working  of  tlie  penal  law 
from  the  fact  that  Dan  Ihids  he  has  wronged 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE    PEASANTRY       137 

his  family  in  suspecting  them,  becomes  recon- 
ciled to  them,  and  marries  the  lady  of  his  choice. 

The  Irish  novels  are  one  more  witness  to  the 
purity  of  the  Catholic  priesthood  in  Ireland. 
The  priest  unfaithful  to  his  vows  is  a  figure 
almost  unknown  to  them.  TIte  Nowlans  (1826) 
is  the  only  one  of  these  stories  in  which  the 
breaking  of  a  priest's  vows  for  the  love  of  a 
woman  is  the  central  situation. 

John  jSTowlan,  the  hero  of  The  Noivlans,  is  a 
handsome,  intelligent  young  peasant,  with  all  the 
peasant's  dower  of  impulse  and  passion.  Set 
apart  for  the  priesthood,  he  has  completed  his 
education  in  the  three  R's,  some  Greek  and  Latin, 
and  plenty  of  theology.  ^Ir.  Long,  a  wealthy 
country  gentleman,  taking  a  fancy  to  young 
Nowlan,  domesticates  him  in  the  "big  house," 
where  he  becomes  tutor  in  the  classics  to  Miss 
Letty  Adams,  Mr.  Long's  pretty  niece. 

The  expected  happens  ;  the  ardent  young 
peasant  finds  himself  inextricably  in  love  with 
the  inexperienced  girl  who  returns  his  passion. 
The  young  man  vainly  tries  to  tear  himself 
away  from  temptation.  His  resistance  is  weak- 
ened by  doubts  concerning  the  faith  and  practice 
of  his  o^^l  church.     Protestants,  seeking  to  con- 


138  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

vert  him,  bring  batteries  of  arguments  to  bear 
against  his  creed.  They  assail,  too,  and  with 
special  effect  at  this  critical  moment,  the  Roman 
rule  of  celibacy  as  unnatural,  and  praise  marriage 
as  the  grand  condition  of  virtuous  happiness. 
The  Established  Church  clergyman,  wliom 
Nowlan  has  come  to  know,  a  young  man  just 
married  and  living  in  blameless  happiness  with 
his  lovely  wife,  is  to  Nowlan  the  tempting 
image  of  a  bliss  within  his  own  reach  if  he 
will  but  yield  to  argument.  In  the  ferment  of 
such  thoughts  and  temptations,  he  and  Letty, 
forgetting  all  that  opposes  their  love,  give  them- 
selves up  to  it  completely.  Nowlan's  vows  are 
broken,  and  the  young  pair  flee  to  Dublin  to 
live  a  life  of  poverty  and  struggle  until  Letty's 
death  in  child-bed.  At  last  Nowlan,  chastened 
by  repentance,  returns  to  follow  the  profession 
which  sin  and  misfortune  had  interrupted. 
Thus  the  only  one  of  these  novels  that  has  for 
its  main  situation  the  temptation  and  sin  of  a 
priest,  ends  in  repentance,  and  a  reconciliation 
between  the  erring  i)riest  and  his  churcli. 

In  The  Peep  o'  Day^  or  John  Doe  (1825)  John 
Banim  has  written  a  story  of  one  of  the  secret 
societies  —  the  Shanavests,  so  called   from  the 


THE   NOVELISTS    OF   THE    PEASANTRY       139 

part  of  dress  by  which  the  members  chose  to  be 
distinguished.  Their  object  is  here  tlie  lower- 
ing of  rack-rents  and  tithes.  By  anonymous 
letters  they  proscribe  rents  and  tithe-rates,  and 
where  their  demands  are  disregarded  inflict 
summary  and  dire  punishment.  They  attend 
to  other  matters  also.  In  one  instance  a  Shan- 
avest  letter  commands  a  Catholic  lawyer  to 
plead  gratis  for  all  defenders  in  the  tithe-proc- 
tor's court ;  in  another  the  priest  finds  a  Shan- 
avest  notice  nailed  to  his  door  demanding  the 
reduction  of  Christmas  and  Easter  dues,  the 
reduction  of  marriage  fees  to  two  shillings  per 
pair,  and  of  christening  fees  to  ten  pence  per 
head. 

The  leader  of  the  Shanavests  of  this  tale  is 
the  son  of  a  once  prosperous  farmer.  His 
father  was  ruined  and  his  sister  robbed  of  her 
good  name  by  a  villanous  middleman.  To 
revenge  his  father  and  sister  he  joins  the  illegal 
association  of  which  he  eventually  becomes  the 
leader,  bringing  his  vengeance  to  a  full  accom- 
plishment at  the  story's  end,  by  having  the 
middleman  shot  and  his  body  tossed  into  the 
flames  of  his  own  house,  which  the  Shanavests 
had  fired. 


140  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

Michael  Banim's  Crohoore  of  the  Bill-Hook 
(1825)  is  also  a  story  of  the  secret  societies. 
The  Whiteboys  are  "up."  A  black-hearted 
tithe-proctor  has  aroused  their  ire  and  receives 
a  midnight  visit.  He  is  dragged  from  his  bed, 
and  buried  alive  up  to  the  neck.  One  of  the 
band  with  a  pruning  knife  in  his  hand  then  steps 
up  and  after  an  address  delivered  in  a  tone  of 
savage  mockery  slices  the  ears  from  the  victim's 
head.  The  victim  is  then  made  to  swear,  on  the 
book,  that  he  will  abandon  forever  his  unpopular 
profession.  This  done,  the  troop,  with  a  wild 
"  hurrah  "  that  testifies  their  triumph,  withdraw. 

The  action  of  Crohoore  is  placed  in  the  period 
when  the  peasants  labored  under  the  cruel  code, 
then  almost  in  full  operation.  While  deprecat- 
ing the  violence  of  the  Whiteboys,  the  story 
aims  to  make  clear  the  grievances  from  whicli 
the  Whiteboy  movement  arose,  and  to  disabuse 
Englishmen  of  the  idea  that  the  Whiteboy 
disturbances  were  groundless  outbreaks  of  sav- 
agery and  malice.  The  peasantry  are  presented 
in  their  poverty  and  ignorance,  neglected,  galled, 
and  hard-driven  by  middlemen  and  titlie-proc- 
tors  who  squeezed  the  very  marrow  from  tlieir 
bones.     Under  maddening  hardships  it  is  seen 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE  PEASANTRY       141 

how  natural,  almost  inevitable,  it  was  that  tliey 
should  blindly  seek  redress  and  wreak  ven- 
geance in  the  only  way  open  to  them. 

In  The  Croppy  (1828),  by  Michael  Banim, 
the  scene  is  the  County  Wexford;  the  time,  the 
eve  of  and  during  the  Rebellion  of  '98.  The 
novel  is  a  love  story  moving  through  a  series  of 
historic  and  semi-historic  incidents  representing 
the  life  men  lived  in  those  days  of  suspense  and 
danger.  The  novel  takes  its  title  from  a  word 
applied  to  the  rebels  by  their  enemies  as  a  term 
of  contempt.  The  rebels  affected  a  fashion 
of  close-cut  polls  in  imitation  of  the  French 
Republicans.  This  way  of  wearing  the  hair 
was  considered  a  badge  of  disaffection,  and  the 
crop-head  rebel  was  dubbed  the  "croppy." 
The  Croppy  introduces  the  two  parties  who 
were  to  be  antagonists  in  the  impending  strug- 
gle —  the  Catholic  peasantry,  mostly  identified 
with  the  United  Irishmen,  the  society  planning 
the  Rebellion  which  was  to  free  Ireland  from 
English  rule,  and  the  Orangemen,  the  loyalists 
and  conspiracy  hunters,  bent  on  preventing  an 
outbreak  or  suppressing  one  if  it  should  occur. 

The  meetings  of  the  United  Irishmen  of  the 
early  part  of  the  story  reflect  the  attitude  of 


142  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

the  peasantry  of  the  south  toward  the  Rebel- 
lion. An  emissary  of  the  United  Irishmen 
comes  down  from  the  north  to  see  how  matters 
stand  in  the  County  Wexford  on  the  eve  of  the 
rising.  In  a  smithy  he  meets  a  parochial  com- 
mittee of  the  society  —  decent  men,  snug  farm- 
ers and  small  tradesmen  they  seem  —  to  canvass 
the  situation.  He  asks  if,  in  their  operations, 
they  have  proceeded  in  tlie  spirit  of  the  oath  of 
membership  by  which  they  swore  to  make  the 
society  a  brotherhood  of  Irishmen  of  every  re- 
ligious persuasion.  The  frank  replies  told  the 
familiar  tale,  that  generous  patriots  groaned 
to  hear,  of  a  great  movement  inspired  by  the 
ideal  of  a  happy  freedom  for  a  United  Ireland, 
gone  wrong,  and  sunk  to  the  level  of  a  bitter 
sectarian  struggle  rooted  in  old  hate,  fear,  and 
religious  bigotry. 

The  Croppy  gives  a  sample,  too,  of  the  out- 
rages of  the  Orange  yeomanry  that  marked  the 
attempts  to  quell  the  growing  disaffection. 
These  deeds  convinced  the  Catholics  that  the 
Orangemen  were  conspiring  to  exterminate 
them,  and  precipitated  the  Rebellion.  This  is 
the  kind  of  thing  that  was  happening  all  over 
the  country.     A  United  Irishman   blacksmith 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE   PEASAXTliY       143 

had  been  making  pikes  for  the  use  of  the  rebels, 
and  the  pike-heads  were  concealed  beneath  the 
anvil  in  the  shop.  Some  informer  revealed 
the  fact  to  the  yeomanry.  The  man's  son 
rushes  into  the  smithy  with  the  news  that  the 
yeomanry  are  at  his  heels  to  search  for  concealed 
weapons.  ^Messengers  at  once  post  off  to  warn 
neighbors  similarly  involved.  The  smith,  as 
the  guilty  man,  hastens  from  the  shop  to  con- 
ceal himself,  thinking  his  wife  and  children  will 
be  unharmed.  The  yeomanry  clatter  up  to  the 
door ;  find  the  bird  flown  ;  seize  the  son  and 
some  of  the  neighbors  who  are  suspected  ;  burn 
the  smithy,  and  try  to  turn  their  captives  into 
informers  by  torture.  Some  are  fastened  to 
trees  and  flogged  within  an  inch  of  their  lives. 
The  smith's  son  is  strung  up  to  the  limb  of  a 
tree  and  lowered,  to  try  if  they  can  wring  from 
the  convulsed  lips  and  bewildered  senses  of  the 
boy  confessions  regarding  the  conspiracy  and 
the  hiding-place  of  his  father.  The  boy,  still 
keeping  silence,  is  again  strung  up,  and  again 
lowered  to  gasp  out  a  false  story,  that  can  do 
his  friends  no  harm,  and  may  do  good,  to  the 
effect  that  the  Catholics  were  about  to  sweep 
down  on  the  Orangemen  ten  thousand  strong. 


144  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

This  assertion  fell  in  with  the  belief  held  by  the 
Orangemen  (corresponding  to  the  Catholic  fear 
of  them)  that  their  enemies  were  planning  a 
massacre.  Hence  operations  stop  at  once  ;  the 
lad  is  left  to  expire  in  the  arms  of  his  parents ; 
there  is  a  rush  for  the  horses,  and  the  Orange 
cavalry  gallop  to  quarters  to  prepare  for  the 
descent  of  the  ten  thousand. 

The  difficulties  of  the  country  gentry  who 
sought  to  remain  neutral  during  the  Rebellion 
are  illustrated  in  the  dilemma  of  the  Sir  Thomas 
Hartley  of  the  story.  He  is  one  of  those  whose 
sympathies  had  gone  with  the  United  Irishmen 
up  to  the  time  their  proceedings  changed  from 
open  remonstrance  to  secret  conspiracy ;  but 
he  shrank  from  rebellion,  and  refused  to  wade 
through  blood  to  freedom.  He  detested  the 
bigotry  of  the  Orangemen,  however,  and  ac- 
tively opposed  their  pitch-cappings,  scourgings, 
half-hangings  and  whole-hangings  of  peasants 
on  the  mere  suspicion  of  rebellion.  As  a  result 
of  his  conduct  the  Orangemen  marked  liim  for 
an  enemy  and  a  traitor,  and  the  rebellious  peas- 
antry believed  they  had  in  him  a  secret  cham- 
pion of  tlieir  conspiracy.  Of  one  side  of  this 
understanding  he  is  made  well  aware  at  the 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   PEASANTRY       145 

very  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion,  when,  sitting  at 
home,  he  is  startled  one  day  by  a  tremendous 
shout,  like  the  clamor  of  a  thousand  throats. 
Looking  from  his  window  he  sees,  swarming  on 
his  lawn,  a  motley  multitude  composed  of  the 
Catholic  peasantry  of  the  whole  neighborhood, 
armed  with  rusty  guns,  bludgeons,  scythes,  and 
formidable  pikes.  The  peasantry  are  "  up  "  and 
the  Rebellion  has  begun.  A  spokesman  steps 
before  the  mob  and  informs  Sir  Thomas  that  he, 
the  ''  barrow-knight,"  has  been  chosen  to  take 
command  of  the  troops  of  the  Union  drawn  up 
before  him,  and  that  they  are  ready  to  follow 
him  to  the  world's  end.  On  his  declining  the 
honor,  and  declaring  he  will  have  no  hand  in 
the  Rebellion,  the  threatening  shouts  of  the 
wild  crowd  bear  in  upon  him  the  perils  of  the 
trimmer's  position :  — 

"  What's  the  rason  you  have  for  skulkin'  back. 
Sir  Thomas?" 

'*  You're  afeared.  Sir  Thomas,  an'  the  curse 
o'  Cromwell  on  all  cowards.  But  ar'n't  you 
afeared  iv  usP  Ar'n't  you  afeared  we'd  drag 
you  down  from  that  windee,  an'  make  you  march 
wid  us,  or  die  by  us  ?  " 

"  Oncet  more,  an'  for  the  last  time.  Sir  Thomas, 
will  you  be  one  among  us  or  an  inemy  agin  us  ?  " 

"  Smash  the  duour  I  " 
J* 


146  lEISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

Sir  Thomas,  by  good  fortune,  is  able  to  escape 
rebel  violence,  but  only  to  be  caught  on  the 
other  horn  of  the  dilemma.  The  Orangemen, 
regarding  his  inactivity  as  disloyalty,  pack  the 
jury,  try  him,  and  condemn  him  to  death  as  a 
traitor. 

The  scenes  from  the  heart  of  the  Rebellion 
make  a  vivid  picture  of  the  state  of  the  County 
Wexford  —  the  roads  astir  with  the  rebels  in 
disorderly  mobs,  burning  houses  and  piking  the 
enemies  they  could  lay  hands  on,  while  the 
Orangemen  retaliated  by  bayoneting  or  shooting 
every  timid  straggler  in  a  peasant's  coat  who  had 
not  turned  out  with  the  main  body.  The  rebel 
army,  officers  and  men,  becomes  familiarly  known. 
The  scene  upon  the  hill  of  Ballyorvil,  where  the 
rebels  are  preparing  for  the  attack  on  Ennis- 
corthy,  is  curious  to  the  last  degree  in  the 
glimpses  given  of  the  grotesque  appearance  and 
doings  of  the  "  throops  of  the  Union."  In  the 
front  of  this  body  were  collected  all  who  bore 
firearms,  some  few  shouldering  muskets,  and 
the  rest  clutching  guns  of  every  kind  and 
calibre,  plundered  from  the  villages  they  passed 
through  on  their  way,  wrested  from  parties  of 
defeated  Orangemen,  or  dragged  from  places  of 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE   PEASANTRY       147 

concealment  to  grace  the  long-expected  day. 
Ammunition  was  scarce,  and  carried  for  the 
most  part  in  bits  of  paper  thrust  inaccessibly 
into  the  depths  of  their  pockets.  Behind  the 
"  gunsmen  "  rose  groves  of  long  pikes  roughly 
fashioned  from  the  anvil,  rude,  black  weapons, 
but  serviceable,  and  fit  instruments  in  this  civil 
strife  where  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war 
found  no  place.  This  army  was  clad  as  strangely 
as  it  was  armed.  Uniforms  there  were  none. 
Some  had  pouches  or  cross-belts  wrested  from 
the  soldiers,  but  most  were  dressed  in  their  usual 
costumes,  except  that  many  doffed  coats,  stock- 
ings, and  brogues  to  go  into  action  in  the 
broiling  summer  weather  as  cool  and  light  as 
possible.  The  leaders,  mostly  farmers  and  small 
tradesmen,  with  a  few  priests,  among  them  the 
burly  figure  of  the  Father  Rourke  of  history, 
later  hung  upon  Wexford  bridge,  were  out  in 
front  of  their  commands.  They  were  clad  like 
the  rank  and  file,  except  perhaps  for  a  green 
hatband  or  some  badge  of  green  fastened  upon 
them.  These  officers,  with  difficulty  raising  their 
tones  of  command  above  the  general  clamor, 
in  which  the  shrill  cries  of  women  and  children 
who  had  accompanied  the  men  bore  no  incon- 


148  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

siderable  part,  were  busied  in  pushing,  pulling, 
coaxing,  and  cursing  their  unruly  throngs 
into  some  sort  of  disposition  for  march  and 
battle. 

From  the  hill  of  Ballyorvil  the  story  follows 
the  rebel  forces  as  they  sweep  pell-mell,  with 
undisciplined  courage  into  Enniscorthy;  to  their 
camp  on  Vinegar  Hill,  with  particular  -attention 
to  the  slaughter  ad  libitum  of  cattle  to  appease 
their  hunger,  and  Orangemen  to  satisfy  their 
revenge;  thence  to  Wexford,  and  to  the  cap- 
ture of  Ross,  and  the  retreat  therefrom,  with 
which  the  novel  as  a  story  of  the  Rebellion 
concludes. 

The  preoccupation  of  the  Banims  with  the 
past  and  present  fortunes  of  their  co-religionists, 
and  their  strong  Catholic  sympathies,  are  writ- 
ten all  over  their  work,  which  is  largely  con- 
cerned with  the  pressure  of  the  penal  laws 
upon  the  Catholics,  with  the  lives  and  minis- 
trations of  the  priests  of  their  church,  and  in 
general  with  the  Catholic  peasantry.  Gerald 
Griffin,  a  friend  of  Banim's,  who  brought  out  a 
collection  of  Irish  stories  shortly  after  the  pub- 
lication of  the  second  series  of  O'Hara  tales, 
was,  like  Banim,  a  Catholic,  wrote  with  strong 


THE   NOVELISTS  OF   THE    PEASANTRY      149 

Catholic  sympathies,  and  kept  before  his  eyes 
a  declared  purpose  of  faithfully  presenting  in 
his  stories  his  Catholic  countrymen  and  their 
religion.  A  Catholic  spirit,  if  not  always  appar- 
ent upon  the  surface  of  his  work,  still  breathes 
through  it  all. 

Griffin  came  of  a  middle-class  Catholic  fam- 
ily. His  father  was  a  brewer  in  the  city  of 
Limerick,  where  Gerald  was  born  in  1803.  In 
1810  the  family  left  Limerick  to  reside  in  the 
country,  at  first  at  Fairy  Lawn  (near  Loughill 
on  the  Shannon),  then  at  Adare,  and  later  at 
Pallas  Kenry.  Like  Carleton  and  the  Banims 
he  received  an  imperfect  education,  intrusted 
to  the  care  of  whatever  tutors  or  masters  hap- 
pened to  be  at  hand,  among  them  a  preceptor  who 
maintained  in  his  methods  some  of  the  oddities 
of  the  hedge-school  "philomaths."  Memories 
of  this  man  and  of  the  school  he  kept  in  the 
little  thatched  Catholic  chapel  are  preserved 
in  the  schoolroom  scene  of  Griffin's  The  Rivals 
(1830).  Gerald's  boyhood  and  youth  seem  a 
record  of  almost  unbroken  happiness.  He  spent 
his  time  in  hunting,  or  in  boating  and  fishing 
upon  the  Shannon,  or  in  rambles  about  the 
country.     His  taste  for  the  romantic  past  de- 


150  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

lighted  in  the  antiquarian  remains  in  which 
the  neighborhood  was  rich.  The  noble  as- 
semblage of  ecclesiastical  ruins  within  the 
demesne  of  the  Earl  of  Dunraven,  which  ad- 
joined the  town  of  A  dare,  especially  appealed 
to  his  reverent  and  pious  nature,  and  doubtless 
helped  to  strengthen  that  interest  in  his  coun- 
try's past  which  eventually  found  expression  in 
his  historical  novel  The  Invasion  (1832).  The 
scenes  and  experiences  of  this  happy  boyhood 
and  youth  were  the  stuff  of  which  his  prose  and 
poetry  were  made.  In  those  days  he  gleaned 
from  the  remote  and  quiet  neighborhoods  in 
which  he  lived,  or  which  he  visited,  their 
legends,  traditions,  and  folk-tales,  and  came  by 
the  knowledge  of  peasant  life  and  character 
which  he  afterward  worked  into  his  fiction. 

With  his  twentieth  year  this  life  of  happy 
pastimes  and  pastoral  calm,  so  gracefully  re- 
flected in  many  wistful  retrospects  of  his 
poetry,  came  to  an  end.  A  love  for  literature, 
which  had  been  his  from  childhood,  developed 
into  an  overwhelming  passion  for  literary  fame, 
and  in  1823,  extravagantly  hopeful  of  quick 
success,  he  left  home  for  London  to  live  by  his 
pen   in   the   city  wilderness.     A  letter  to  his 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   PEASANTRY       151 

parents,  written  after  two  years  of  life  in  Lon- 
don, tells  of  his  early  plans  :  — 

"I  cannot  with  my  present  experience  con- 
ceive anything  more  comical  than  my  own  views 
and  measures  at  the  time.  A  young  gentleman 
totally  unknown,  even  to  a  single  family  in 
London,  coming  into  town  with  a  few  pounds 
in  one  pocket  and  a  brace  of  tragedies  in  an- 
other, supposing  that  one  will  set  lum  up  before 
the  others  are  exhausted,  is  not  a  very  novel, 
but  a  very  laughable  delusion." 

A  cherished  ambition  of  succeeding  by  his  own 
unaided  efforts,  an  extreme  sensitiveness  that 
made  him  unwilling  to  put  himself  under  ob- 
ligations to  those  upon  whom  he  felt  he  had  no 
claim,  threw  him  back  upon  his  own  resources 
and  made  it  difficult  for  the  one  friend  of  earlier 
days  whom  he  found  in  London,  Banim,  or  for 
chance  friends  or  acquaintances,  no  matter 
how  kindly  intentioned,  to  render  him  any 
assistance. 

Disappointment  and  delay,  of  course,  attended 
his  efforts  to  get  his  plays  upon  the  stage.  His 
purse  empty,  reduced  to  desperate  straits,  he 
turned  to  hack  work  of  any  and  every  kind.  In 
spite  of  wasting  and  continuous  labor  he  could 
scarce  keep  soul  and  body  together.     He  lived 


162  .  IRISH  LIFE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 

in  wretched  lodgings  in  poverty  as  extreme  as 
ever  a  Grub  Street  penny-a-liner  survived,  going 
sometimes  for  days  without  food,  and  toiling 
all  the  while  at  a  pace  beyond  human  nature 
to  endure.  Pride  forbade  him  to  own  himself 
vanquished.  "  That  horrid  word  '  failure,' "  he 
wrote  to  his  brother;  "no,  death  first."  And 
this  was  no  vain  boast,  for  at  times  the  grim 
alternative  to  which  he  alludes  was  not  far 
from  its  accomplishment. 

The  story  of  his  first  two  years  is  distressing 
and  painful  to  read.  But  after  that  prospects 
brightened.  He  obtained  by  slow  degrees  a 
footing  as  a  magazine  writer.  In  1827  he  made 
a  decided  hit  with  Holland  Tide  (1826),  a  series 
of  tales  of  Irish  life  that  completely  established 
his  character  with  the  periodicals,  and  seemed 
to  promise  much  for  the  future.  Early  in  1827 
he  returned  to  live  with  his  brother  at  Pallas 
Kenry,  where  he  wrote  Tales  of  the  Munster 
Festivals  (1827),  which  more  than  sustained  the 
reputation  made  by  Holland  Tide.  The  Col- 
legians (1829)  crowned  his  two  preceding  suc- 
cesses. To  Griffin,  however,  the  game  liad  not 
been  worth  the  candle.  He  had,  to  use  his 
own  phrase,  *'  won  half  a  name,"  but  at  tlie  ex- 


THE  NOVELISTS  OF  THE  TEASANTRY  ^r>?, 

pense  of  a  constitution  sapped  and  shattered  by 
severe  trials  and  wasting  toil. 

The  rest  of  the  story  may  be  briefly  told. 
He  lived  mostly  at  home  in  Pallas  Kenry  with 
his  l)rothers,  for  a  time  continuing  his  literary 
work.  Always  of  a  religious  nature,  religion 
gradually  filled  more  and  more  of  his  feeling 
and  thought,  and  he  resolved  to  take  up  a  reli- 
gious vocation.  In  1838  he  joined  the  Christian 
Brothers,  a  Roman  Catholic  lay  order  who  gave 
themselves  to  the  education  of  the  children  of 
the  poor.  With  them  he  lived  and  worked 
until  his  death  of  a  fever  in  1840. 

In  his  survey  of  Irish  life,  Griffin  attends  to 
the  life  of  the  peasantry  and  to  the  life  of  his 
own  order  —  the  rural  middle  class  ;  the  gentry 
are  occasionally  introduced;  the  nobility  are 
scarcely  heard  of. 

Three  of  the  Tales  of  the  Munster  Festivals^ 
"  Card-Drawing,"  "-  The  Hand  and  the  Word," 
and  "  The  Aylmers  of  Bally- Aylmer,"  deal  with 
life  on  the  southwest  coast  of  Ireland.  In  the  first 
two  of  these  the  fisher-folk  appear.  They  are 
seen  occupied  as  was  their  daily  wont  —  they 
talk  Irish,  hunt  seals,  go  to  sea  in  canoes  to  fish, 
lade  the  turf-boats,  till  their  gardens,  eat  pota- 


154  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

toes  and  oaten  bread,  exercise  themselves  in 
offices  of  kindness  toward  strangers,  and  obey 
their  priests  in  all  reasonable  matters.  They 
are  seen  also,  under  the  spur  of  dark  passion, 
acting  out,  now  and  again,  the  tragedies  that 
broke  upon  the  peaceful  regularity  of  their 
lives.  The  tales  of  the  fisher-folk  gain  won- 
derfully in  effect  from  the  romantic  setting  of 
giddy  precipice  and  perilous  sea  before  which 
the  little  dramas  are  enacted.  Griffin  knew  this 
coast  well,  felt  its  wild  charm,  and  makes  the 
reader  feel  it.  The  outlook  of  these  stories  is 
upon  the  stupendous  cliffs  and  crags  for  which 
the  coast  is  famous,  upon  vistas  of  bizarre  and 
fantastic  grandeur — insular  columns  and  pinna- 
cles, amphitheatres,  and  arches,  deep  caverns,  and 
grottos  worn  from  the  solid  rock,  and,  girdling 
all,  the  broad  Atlantic  tossing  its  bright  green 
waves  against  the  rocky  walls,  or  heaving  sul- 
lenly at  their  feet.  The  scenes  from  this  wild 
coast  are  introduced  not  merely  for  their  pic- 
turesqueness,  but  are  used  to  bring  together  in 
a  single  impression  the  fearful  in  landscape  and 
the  dangerous  and  desperate  in  human  passion, 
so  that  moral  and  physical  gulfs  and  precipices 
combine  to  produce  situations  of  poignant  ter- 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   PEASANTRY      155 

ror.  The  scene  in  ''  The  Hand  and  the  Word," 
in  which  Pennie's  happy  lover,  struggling  for  his 
life  with  a  jealous  rival,  is  hurled  from  a  beet- 
ling crag  into  the  sea  hundreds  of  feet  below,  is 
an  instance  of  this.  A  situation  in  "  Card-Draw- 
ing" is  another  instance.  Kinchela,  tortured 
by  the  guilt  of  a  murder,  the  responsibility  for 
w^hich  he  has  fastened  upon  his  rival,  is  being 
lowered  by  a  rope  from  the  cliff-top.  Sus- 
pended in  mid-air  between  the  cliff-top  and 
the  sea,  he  hears  a  strand  of  the  rope  snap 
just  above  him  and  beyond  his  reach.  In  an 
agonj^  of  terror  he  holds  the  incident  for  the 
threat  of  an  angry  God  against  his  murderous 
and  unrepentant  soul. 

In  "  The  Aylmers  of  Bally- Aylmer  "  the  gen- 
try of  the  coast  of  Kerry  are  in  the  foreground. 
The  story  is  laid  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
country  about  the  home  of  the  Aylmers  is  a 
wild  district  of  mountain  and  bog,  doomed  by 
nature  to  poverty,  far  removed  from  any  con- 
siderable centre  of  civilization,  and  traversed 
by  few  regular  roads.  The  state  of  society  in 
this  section,  to  judge  from  the  story,  was  much 
like  that  which  subsisted  in  the  Highlands  of 
Scotland  in  the  early  part   of    the   eighteenth 


156  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

century.  Smuggling  was  the  lucrative  trade, 
and  practised  by  all  classes,  gentlemen  and 
peasants,  Catholics  and  Protestants  alike.  To 
be  known  to  meddle  in  the  ^'  running  trade " 
brought  no  opprobrium  upon  the  character  of 
a  gentleman.  In  the  deep  natural  harbors 
among  the  mountains  privateers  found  their 
shelter.  All  classes  united  in  a  conspiracy  to 
baffle  the  officers  of  the  revenue,  and  informers 
found  themselves  in  such  danger  that  their  trade 
was  almost  abandoned.  Gentlemen  brought  in 
oceans  of  Burgundy  and  brandy,  never  destined 
to  pass  through  the  hands  of  an  exciseman, 
which  they  got  in  exchange  for  sheepskins  and 
other  commodities. 

Griffin  alone  of  the  novelists  touches  upon 
one  odd  and  incongruous  element  of  Irish  life 
—  that  of  the  Palatines,  or  "Palentins,"  as  the 
peasantry  called  them.  They  were  German 
emigrants  brought  over  by  a  few  great  land- 
lords assisted  by  a  grant  from  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment. This  was  early  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
when  English  commercial  legislation  adverse  to 
Irish  interests  had  resulted  in  poverty,  famine, 
and  an  almost  total  depopulation  of  districts  in 
the  south  and  west.     With  the  hope  of  reviving 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE   PEASANTRY       157 

agriculture  at  a  time  when  the  penal  laws  were 
driving  native  energy  to  the  continent,  these 
Palatines  were  brought  over.  They  were  a 
jjart  of  the  tide  of  German  emigration  that  set 
toward  the  American  colonies  at  the  same  pe- 
riod. The  "  Limerick  Dutchman "  and  the 
"  Pennsylvania  Dutch  "  are  of  one  stock.  As 
they  appear  in  Griffin's  story  of  ''  Suil  Dhuv,  or 
The  Coiner"  they  are  peaceful  and  inoffensive  in 
their  habits ;  in  religion  Protestants,  adhering 
to  one  or  another  non-Conformist  type  of  w^or- 
ship ;  and  possessed  of  the  thrift  and  industry 
which  those  who  brought  them  over  thought 
might  be  edifying  to  the  shiftless  and  go-easy 
ways  of  the  Catholic  peasantry. 

"Suil  Dhuv,  or  the  Coiner"  acquaints  the 
reader  with  the  footing  upon  which  these  foreign- 
ers stood  with  the  native  peasantry  among  whom 
they  had  dropped,  as  it  were  from  the  clouds. 
A  difference  in  religion,  habits,  and  disposition, 
and  the  partiality  shown  by  the  lords  of  the 
soil  to  their  new  proteges  in  granting  them  long 
leases  and  other  favors,  are  seen  to  result  in  a 
deep-rooted  hatred  between  Palatine  and  native. 
The  natives,  generous  and  open-handed  to  a 
fault,   had  an    inexpressible  contempt  for  the 


158  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IBISH   FICTION 

unremitting  exertion  in  acquiring  and  the  cau- 
tion in  distributing  money  of  these  foreign  inter- 
lopers whose  "  heart  was  in  a  trifle,"  and  whose 
cold-blooded  prudence  never  gave  the  rein  to 
genial  or  convivial  impulse.  They  hated  also 
their  dry  Puritanical  exactness  in  religious 
matters,  and,  indeed,  had  little  in  common  with 
them  beyond  the  religious  bigotry  and  national 
prejudice  that  moved  each  to  return  heartily 
the  evil  feelings  of  the  other. 

In  the  fat  Palatine  parson  of  the  story,  some 
of  the  traits  that  aroused  the  contemptuous 
aversion  of  the  Catholic  peasantry  crop  out. 
When  he  speaks,  it  is  in  a  strong  German  accent, 
strangely  mingled  with  the  broad  drawling 
patois  of  the  natives,  and  in  a  dry  formal  phra- 
seology of  religious  cant.  He  has  the  true 
Evangelical  appetite  and  solicitude  as  to  the 
quantity  and  quality  of  his  food  and  drink, 
which  Thackeray  and  other  satirists  of  tlie 
brethren  have  made  the  target  of  their  shafts. 
And  his  portrait  includes  also  greed  for  gold 
as  a  feature,  a  weakness  comically  illustrated  by 
the  purchase  of  a  brass  ingot  believed  by  him 
to  be  pure  gold.  He  obtained  it  by  imposing, 
as  he  thought,  upon  what  he  mistook   for  tlie 


THE   NOVELISTS  OF  THE   PEASANTRY      150 

extreme  simplicity  of  the  peasant  who  offered 
it  to  him.  The  peasant  turned  out  to  be  a 
clever  rascal,  whose  plausible  story  and  simple 
countenance  enabled  him  to  palm  off  his  wares 
on  unsuspecting  strangers. 

In  '^The  Half  Sir,"  ''The  Barber  of  Bantry," 
"  Tracy's  Ambition,"  and  The  Collegians^  mid- 
dle-class life  has  a  prominent  place.  In  "  The 
Half  Sir "  it  is  the  hero's  social  position  as 
one  of  this  class  that  gives  the  story  its 
coloring,  and  the  plot  its  direction.  This  hero 
is  a  young  man  of  low  origin  who  has  inherited 
a  fortune.  This  fortune  and  his  education  have 
raised  a  barrier  between  him  and  the  class  to 
which  he  belonged.  His  sjanpathies  lead  him 
to  seek  the  society  of  rank  and  position.  Here 
he  finds  himself  snubbed  right  and  left.  His 
misery  over  the  slights  and  cold  shoulders  to 
which  he  has  exposed  himself  are  surrounded 
with  an  atmosphere  of  tragic  gloom  quite  out 
of  keeping  with  the  weakness  of  the  situation. 
Weary  of  slights  and  snubs,  the  hero  abjures 
high  society,  and  settles  down  as  a  misanthropic 
member  of  the  middle  class.  As  such  he  has 
his  differences  from  the  nobility  and  gentry. 
Sporting  tastes  are  wanting  ;  he  can  stay  away 


160  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

from  hunts,  horse-races,  or  cock-fights  without 
compunction.  Sociable  and  convivial  tastes 
are  also  undeveloped ;  he  never  gives  dinners, 
dances,  or  parties,  and  shows  no  zeal  to  make 
himself  and  his  friends  drunk  at  every  oppor- 
tunity. His  benefactions  do  not  stream  from 
the  heart  in  the  bursts  of  impulsive  generosity 
that  delight  both  the  giver  and  the  humble 
recipient  of  bounty.  The  poor  man  can  scarcely 
be  grateful  to  so  cold  and  phlegmatic  a  bene- 
factor. 

The  "  half  quality  "  of  whom  this  hero  is  a 
type  were  not  in  high  favor  with  the  peasantry. 
A  peasant  of  this  tale  has  referred  contemptu- 
ously to  the  hero  as  a  "  half  sir,"  and  is  asked 
what  he  means  by  the  expression.  He  makes 
himself  clear.     The  "  half  sir,"  he  says,  is  — 

"  A  sort  of  small  gentleman,  that  way  :  the 
singlings  ^  of  a  gentleman,  as  it  were.  A  made 
man  —  not  a  born  gentleman.  Not  great,  all 
out,  nor  poor,  that  way  entirely.  Betuxt  and 
betune,  as  you  may  say.  Neither  good  pot- 
ale,  nor  yet  strong  whiskey.  Neitlier  beef  nor 
vale.  ...  A  man  that  wouldn't  go  to  a  hunt, 
nor  a  race-course,  nor  a  cock-fight,  nor  a  hurlen- 

^  "  Singlings  "  are  the  first  runnings  of  spirits  in  the  process 
of  distillation. 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE   TEASAN'riiY       ICl 

match,  nor  a  dance,  nor  a  fencen-bout,  nor  any 
one  born  thing.  Sure  that's  no  gentleman  I  A 
man  that  gives  no  parties  nor  was  ever  known 
yet  to  be  drunk  in  his  own  house.  O  poh  I  —  A 
man  that  was  never  seen  to  put  his  hand  in  his 
pocket  of  a  frosty  mornen  and  say  to  a  poor 
man,  '  Hoy,  hoy  I  my  good  fellow,  here's  a  tin- 
penny  for  you,  and  get  a  drap  o'  something 
warm  and  comfortable  agen  the  day.'  A  man 
that  was  never  by  any  mains  overtaken  in  liquor 
himself,  nor  the  cause  of  anybody  else  being  so, 
either.    Sure  such  a  man  as  that  has  no  heart!  " 

iNIr.  Edmund  Moynahan  and  his  family  in  The 
Barber  of  Bantry  are  distinctly  middle  class, 
though  eventually  Moynahan  forfeits  his  stand- 
ing. Unhappily  drawn  into  the  bacchanalian 
whirl  of  the  gentry,  he  loses  his  habitual  sobri- 
ety, and  becomes  a  "  sitter-up-o'-nights "  and 
bottle  companion  to  his  genteel,  bibulous  neigh- 
bors, drowning  integrity  and  respectability  in 
claret  and  whiskey  punch.  But  before  his  fall 
he  was  an  exemplary  member  of  his  class.  He 
rose  and  retired  early.  The  dawn  saw  him 
watching  his  laborers  in  the  field  or  on  the 
road,  and  till  sunset  he  was  occupied  in  busi- 
ness, or  in  advising  and  assisting  his  tenants. 
His  wife  was  a  stirring,  competent  woman.  She 
knew  Buchanan  s  Domestic  Medicine  from  cover 


162  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IKISII  FICTION 

to  cover ;  superintended  the  dairy  or  the  flax- 
dressers  at  work  in  the  barn;  knit  stockings, 
and  nursed  the  sick  tenantry.  Dancing,  riding, 
flirting,  dinner-giving,  and  the  like  she  left  to 
the  gentry.  In  the  Moynahan  establishment, 
economy  and  industry  went  hand  in  hand.  Nor 
were  the  Moynahans  without  their  pleasures. 
In  the  evening  there  was  reading  aloud,  while 
Mr.  Moynahan  dozed  ;  Mrs.  Moynahan  knit  or 
played  with  the  children  ;  and  occasionally 
there  came  a  chance  visitor  to  be  entertained 
with  temperate  cheer.  They  were  pious  people, 
too;  they  fasted  on  fast  days  and  kept  holy 
days  holy ;  they  were  edified  by  the  unadorned 
exhortation  of  the  parish  priest ;  in  short,  they 
lived  at  peace  with  themselves,  the  world,  and 
heaven. 

Mr.  Moynahan  was  no  convivialist ;  he  prided 
himself  upon  the  wholesomeness  of  his  fare,  and 
frowned  upon  the  wild  and  extravagant  follies 
of  the  gentry,  eschewing  the  luxury  and  profu- 
sion he  could  not  afford.  The  duelling  habits 
of  the  gentry  were  to  him  bloodthirsty  and 
barbarous.  Horse-races,  hunts,  and  cock-fights 
were  not  his  passions.  Like  tlie  ''lialf  sir,"  he 
was  neither  sporting  man  nor  convivialist. 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   PEASANTRY      1G3 

Mr.  Moynahan  was  tax-collector  for  his  dis- 
trict, and  in  this  vocation  also  failed  to  conform 
naturally  to  the  standards  of  the  gentry.  When 
he  began  to  assess  taxes,  he  shocked  his  genteel 
acquaintances  by  a  very  ungenteel  disposition 
to  do  so  in  proportion  to  real  values  and  accord- 
ing to  law.  The  code  of  the  gentry  expected  a 
tax-collector  to  make  his  own  fortune  as  fast 
as  possible,  and  to  let  his  friends  off  easily. 
Moynahan  seemed  indisposed  to  follow  the  cus- 
tomary procedure  ;  he  showed  a  very  ungenteel 
squeamishness  in  cheating  the  King's  exchequer 
for  his  own  good  and  the  good  of  his  friends. 
On  his  visits  to  them  in  a  professional  capacity 
he  was  surprised  at  receiving  assurances  that 
they  had  no  windows,  no  hearths,  no  carriages, 
horses,  nor  cows ;  in  a  word,  that  the  wealth 
they  were  wont  on  all  other  occasions  to  dis- 
play with  pride  had  suddenly  and  mysteriously 
dwindled  to  nothing.  If  he  shook  his  head 
and  suggested  the  propriety  of  a  personal  in- 
spection, he  was  answered  by  a  polite  reminder 
that  to  do  so  would  be  a  reflection  upon  their 
veracity.  He  was  then  invited  to  dine  and 
spend  the  night  with  them,  and  loaded  with 
attentions.     A  company  of  taxable  gentlemen 


164  IRISH  LIFE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 

were  there  to  meet  him.  The  conversation  did 
not  fail  to  bring  out  the  course  of  his  predeces- 
sors in  office  ;  they  had  pursued  a  certain  line 
of  conduct ;  he  surely  would  not  make  himself 
singular.  Each  member  of  the  company  had 
some  little  thing  he  might  want.  One  was 
anxious  to  supply  his  cellar,  another  his  table, 
a  hundred  his  pantry.  All  hands  looked  for- 
ward to  his  visit,  and  assured  him  that  every 
house  in  the  country  had  a  convivial  board,  a 
comfortable  chamber,  and  a  blazing  fire  for  the 
tax-gatherer.  Of  course,  so  much  kindness  and 
generosity  overcame  the  ungenteel  scruples 
of  the  good-natured  man  ;  the  least  the  tax- 
collector  could  do  for  his  friends  was  to 
write  down  fifty,  or  less,  where  a  hundred 
should  stand.  The  middle-class  conscience 
at  last  conformed  to  the  standard  of  the 
gentry. 

The  Daly  family  in  The  Collegians  have 
many  traits  in  common  with  the  middle-class 
people  just  referred  to.  There  is  the  same 
homeliness,  the  same  happy,  if  somewhat  insipid, 
domesticity.  They  have  the  tendency,  pres- 
ent also  in  the  others,  to  moralize  every  incident 
that  comes  within  reach.     And  they  share  also 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE    PEASANTRY       1G.'> 

with  the  others  the  pietistic  sentiment  (very 
different  from  the  heart-felt  religion  of  the 
peasantry)  that  does  duty  as  a  sanction  for  the 
little  prudences  and  decorums  demanded  by 
their  circumstances  and  position. 

The  middle  class,  as  Griffin  portrays  it,  dif- 
fers from  the  nobility  and  gentry  in  the  lack 
of  the  dash  and  go,  the  frankness  and  high 
spirit,  the  sporting  and  convivial  tastes,  the 
recklessness,  and  wild  wit  and  gayety.  It  wants 
also  the  primitive  force,  the  depth,  the  fervor, 
tlie  homely  but  subtle  and  searching  humor 
of  peasant  life.  It  is  more  sober  and  subdued 
in  tone  and  temper,  more  decorous.  It  is  pru- 
dent, takes  thought  for  the  morrow,  is  domestic, 
moral,  conscientious,  and  pious,  with  conven- 
tionality, tameness,  timidit}^  and  insipidity  for 
its  unpleasant  features. 

William  Carleton,  the  last  and  greatest 
of  this  group,  and  the  greatest  of  these 
Irish  novelists,  was  born  in  Prillisk,  County 
Tyrone,  in  1798.  His  father  was  a  peasant 
tenant,  and  William  passed  his  youth  among 
scenes  precisely  similar  to  those  he  describes  in 
his  stories.  Both  father  and  mother  were  peas- 
ants of  the  finest  type.     They  seem  to  have 


166  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

summed  up  in  themselves  the  best  traits,  the 
accomplishments,  and  the  knowledge  of  their 
class,  and  to  have  possessed  in  a  high  degree 
the  domestic  virtues  which  are  the  glory  of  the 
humbler  Irish.     Of  his  parents  Carleton  says :  — 

"  My  father  indeed  was  a  very  humble  man, 
but  on  account  of  his  unaffected  piety  and 
stainless  integrity  of  principle,  he  was  held  in 
high  esteem  by  all  who  knew  him,  no  matter 
of  what  rank  they  might  be.  .  .  .  jNIy  father 
possessed  a  memory  not  merely  great  or  surpris- 
ing, but  absolutely  astonishing.  As  a  narrator 
of  old  tales,  legends,  and  historical  anecdotes 
he  was  unrivalled,  and  his  stock  of  them  inex- 
haustible. He  spoke  the  Irish  and  the  English 
languages  with  equal  fluency.  With  all  kinds 
of  charms,  old  ranns,  or  poems,  old  prophecies, 
religious  superstitions,  tales  of  pilgrims,  mira- 
cles and  pilgrimages,  anecdotes  of  blessed  priests 
and  friars,  revelations  from  ghosts  and  fairies, 
he  was  thoroughly  well  acquainted.  I  have 
never  heard  since,  during  a  tolerably  large 
intercourse  with  Irish  society,  both  educated 
and  uneducated  —  with  the  antiquary,  the 
scholar,  or  the  humble  senachie  —  any  single 
legend,  tradition,  or  usage,  that,  so  far  as  I  can 
recollect,  was  perfectly  new  to  me,  or  unlieard 
before  in  some  similar  or  cognate  guise. 

"My  mother  possessed  the  sweetest  and  most 
exquisite  of  human  voices.  In  her  early  life, 
I  had  often  been  told,  by  those  who  liad  heard 


THE    NOVELISTS   OF   THE   PEASANTRY       1G7 

her  sing,  that  any  previous  intimation  of  her 
attendance  at  a  dance,  wake,  or  other  festive 
occasion,  was  sure  to  attract  crowds  of  persons, 
many  from  a  distance  of  several  miles,  in  order 
to  hear  from  her  lips  the  touching  old  airs 
of  the  country.  No  sooner  was  it  known  that 
she  would  attend  any  such  meeting,  than  the 
news  of  it  spread  through  the  neighborhood 
like  wild-fire,  and  the  people  flocked  from  all 
parts  to  hear  her,  just  as  the  fashionable  world 
does  now,  when  the  name  of  some  eminent 
songstress  is  announced  in  the  papers  —  with 
this  difference,  that  upon  such  occasions,  the 
voice  of  the  one  falls  only  on  the  cultivated 
ear^  whilst  that  of  the  latter  falls  deep  upon  the 
untutored  heart.  She  was  not  so  well  acquainted 
with  the  English  tongue  as  my  father,  although 
she  spoke  it  with  sufficient  ease  for  all  the  pur- 
poses of  life  ;  and  for  this  reason  among  others 
she  always  gave  the  Irish  versions  of  the  songs 
in  question  rather  than  the  English  ones."  ^ 

Carleton's  education  was  of  the  humblest 
description.  As  his  father  removed  from  one 
small  farm  to  another,  from  townland  to  town- 
land,  Carleton  attended  the  hedge-schools  wher- 
ever he  happened  to  be.  Government,  in  its 
endeavor  to  crush  out  Catholic  education,  had 
only  surrounded  it,  as  it  had  the  Catholic  priest- 
hood, with  a  halo ;   and  Carleton  shared  in  the 

1  O'Donoghue's  Life  of  Carleton^  Vol.  I,  pp.  5-7. 


168  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

strange  enthusiasm  for  Greek  and  Latin,  and 
"the  larnin' "  in  general,  that  was  not  uncom- 
mon among  ditchers  and  ploughboys.  Carle- 
ton  sat  under  a  series  of  hedge-schoolmasters, 
and  knew  by  experience  both  the  harmlessly 
eccentric,  and  cruel  and  violent  variety  ;  a 
niece  of  his  died  of  an  inflammation  that  re- 
sulted from  the  master's  plucking  her  ear  with 
such  violence  as  to  bring  on  inflammation  of 
some  of  the  internal  tendons.  Oarleton  also 
picked  up  here  and  there  some  smattering  of 
higher  learning  as  opportunity  offered. 

In  his  fifteenth  year  he  started  for  Munster 
in  search  of  education  as  a  poor  scholar.  The 
plan  was  not  carried  out,  however,  and  he  was 
soon  home  again,  devoting  himself  assiduously 
to  the  enjoyment  of  fairs  and  markets,  wakes, 
weddings,  christenings,  and  merrymakings. 
For  some  two  or  three  years  he  remained  at 
home,  and  was  distinguished  as  a  dancer  and 
athlete  of  local  celebrity,  and  a  prominent  figure 
at  all  festivities.  As  a  true  peasant,  too,  —  we 
have  his  own  word  for  it,  —  he  was  an  adept  at 
dressing  and  swinging  the  "sprig  of  shillelagh." 
He  enjoyed  also  a  great  reputation  for  his  sup- 
posed   learning,  among   his    own    family  more 


THE   N0VELI>;TS   of   the   peasantry       169 

especially,  which  led  them  to  destine  him  for 
the  priesthood. 

When  about  nineteen  he  left  home  again, 
this  time  on  a  pilgrimage.  His  father  had 
often  told  him  the  stories  that  centred  about 
St.  Patrick's  Purgatory  on  the  little  island  in 
Lough  Derg.  To  this  romantic  spot  Carleton 
went  as  one  of  the  stream  of  pilgrims.  What 
he  saw  there  affected  him  unfavorably,  set  him 
thinking  on  religious  questions,  and  was  the  occa- 
sion of  his  later  change  of  faith,  for  he  became  a 
Protestant,  though  in  later  years  he  returned,  in 
sympathy  at  least,  to  the  religion  of  his  fathers. 

An  epoch  in  Carleton's  life  was  made  by  his 
chancing  upon  a  copy  of  G-il  Bias.  A  longing 
to  see  the  world  consumed  him,  and  he  left 
home  a  third  time,  making  his  way  to  Dublin, 
where  for  years  he  had  a  hard  struggle  with 
poverty;  indeed,  all  through  his  life  the  wolf 
was  never  far  from  the  door.  In  Dublin  he  fell 
in  with  Caesar  Otway,  a  Protestant  controversial- 
ist and  proselytizer,  who,  though  of  a  harsh  and 
unamiable  character,  stood  Carleton's  friend, 
and  gave  him  his  start  in  literature  by  getting 
him  to  write  his  account  of  his  Lough  Derg 
pilgrimage  (from  a  Protestant  controversialist 


170  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

point  of  view)  in  Tlie  Lough  Derg  Pilgrim^  later 
included  in  the  Traits  and  Stories. 

From  this  time  on  his  life  was  uneventful. 
He  married  the  daughter  of  a  schoolmaster,  and 
taught  for  a  while,  but  eventually  supported 
himself  entirely  by  his  pen.  When  about  thirty 
years  old  he  published  the  Traits  and  Stories  of 
the  Irish  Peasantry  (1830),  which  established 
his  reputation.  Then  came  Fardarougha  the 
Miser  (1839),  and  Valentine  M' Clutchy  (1847). 

The  Young  Ireland  movement  was  at  this  time 
in  full  swing.  Carle  ton  did  not  escape  from  its 
influence,  and  contributed  to  The  Natioyial  Li- 
brary the  short  novels  Paddy  Go-Easy  (1845), 
Rody  the  Rover  (1845),  and  Art  Maguire  (1847), 
all  designed  to  correct  peasant  weaknesses  and 
follies — intemperance,  bad  farming  and  house- 
keeping, and  secret  societies.  On  Banim's 
death,  he  applied,  without  success,  for  the 
pension  the  government  had  given  his  fellow- 
novelist.  Had  he  obtained  it,  he  would  have 
been  freed  from  the  hack  Avork  that  may  have 
had  something  to  do  with  the  decline  of  his 
genius.  Carleton  died  in  Dublin  in  1869,  at  the 
age  of  seventy. 

Carleton's  work,    unique    in    many  ways,    is 


J 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE    PEASANTRY       171 

especially  so  for  the  light  it  throws  upon  the 
strange  system  of  peasant  education  that  pre- 
vailed in  the  days  of  his  youth.  ''  The  Hedge 
School"  and  ''Going  to  Maynooth,"  two  tales 
from  the  Traits  and  Stories^  give  a  most  full  and 
faithful  account  of  the  hedge-schoolmaster  — 
that  quaint  and  curious  product  of  the  laws 
against  Catholic  education,  —  of  his  school,  his 
methods  of  instruction,  his  pupils,  and  his 
status  in  rural  social  life.  The  fact  that  the 
hedge-schoolmaster  and  the  hedge-school  have 
passed  away  forever  under  the  stress  of  social 
changes  gives  these  stories  a  strong  interest  as 
social  documents. 

The  hedge-schoolmasters  were  a  class  of  men 
so  called  because,  when  the  penal  laws  were  in 
operation  and  to  teach  publicly  in  a  schoolhouse 
was  impossible,  they  would  settle  on  some  green 
spot  behind  a  hedge,  where  the  sons  of  the  farm- 
ers from  the  country  round  flocked  to  them,  in 
spite  of  spies  and  statutes,  to  learn  whatever 
they  could  teach.  Even  after  the  abolition  of 
the  penal  laws  against  Catholic  education  the 
same  customs  for  a  long  time  prevailed  in  neigh- 
borhoods where  from  poverty  or  other  reasons 
there  was  no  schoolhouse. 


172  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

These  masters,  as  Carleton  presents  them, 
were  for  the  most  part  originals,  eccentric  to 
the  last  degree.  They  combined  a  real  enthu- 
siasm for  learning  with  a  deal  of  ludicrous  ped- 
antry. Learning  was  scarce  in  the  country,  and 
any  one  having  the  character  of  it  excited  in  the 
peasantry  a  profound  reverence  that  kept  the 
pride  of  these  gentlemen  at  the  full  stretch  of 
inflation.  In  their  deportment  they  were  con- 
sequential and  dictatorial,  with  the  airs  of  supe- 
riority that  resulted  from  a  sense  of  their  own 
knowledge  and  a  pitying  contempt  for  the  dark 
ignorance  of  those  around  them.  In  the  effort 
to  preserve  their  professional  dignity,  they  in- 
trenched themselves  behind  a  great  solemnity  of 
manner,  which  the  irrepressible  humor  of  their 
country  was  continually  attacking  and  break- 
ing through.  A  curious  custom  that  prevailed 
among  them,  in  accordance  with  which  a  liedge- 
schoolmaster  established  himself  by  driving 
away  those  less  qualilied  and  usurping  their 
place,  made  acuteness  and  quickness  as  essential 
to  them  as  learning.  If  a  sclioolmaster  desired 
to  settle  in  a  town  whicli  already  possessed  a 
teacher,  the  proper  method  of  procedure  was  to 
challenge  him  to  a  public  debate  upon  the  cliapel 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   PEASANTRY       173 

green  or  some  convenient  place.  The  peasants 
always  witnessed  these  debates  ^vith  the  keenest 
relish,  and  encouraged  them  as  tending  to  main- 
tain a  high  standard  in  the  profession.  In  such 
contests  the  victory  was  to  the  ready-witted, 
and  once  a  master  was  defeated  —  ''sacked" 
or  "  made  a  hare  of  "  were  the  Irish  expressions 
—  the  reverence  of  the  country-side  was  gone 
from  him  and  forthwith  transferred  to  the  per- 
son of  the  victor.  It  w^as  not  expected  of  the 
hedge-schoolmaster  to  instruct  in  morality  or 
religion  ;  tliat  was  the  priest's  business,  and, 
indeed,  these  men  were  far  from  exemplary  in 
manners  and  morals.  An  inordinate  love  of 
whiskey,  odd  as  it  may  appear,  was  often  a  rec- 
ommendation in  a  teacher,  and  one  which,  to 
do  them  justice,  few  were  without.  This  is 
illustrated  in  ''The  Hedge-School."  An  Irish 
peasant  is  asked  why  he  sent  his  child  to  Mat 
Meegan,  a  master  notoriously  addicted  to  liquor, 
rather  than  to  Mr.  Frazer,  a  man  of  sober  habits 
who  taug'ht  in  the  same  neisfhborhood :  — 

'"Why  do  I  send  them  to  Mat  Meegan,  is  it?' 
he  replied — *and  do  you  think,  sir,'  said  he, 
'that  I'd  send  them  to  that  dry -headed  dunce, 
]\Ir.  Frazher,  with  his  black  coat  upon  him,  and 


174  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

his  Caroline  hat,  and  him  wouldn't  take  a  glass 
of  poteen  wanst  in  seven  years  ?  Mat,  sir,  likes 
it,  and  taches  the  boys  ten  times  betther  whin 
he's  dhrunk  nor  whin  he's  sober;  and  you'll 
never  find  a  good  tacher,  sir,  but's  fond  of  it. 
As  for  Mat,  when  he's  half  gone^  I'd  turn  him 
agin  the  country  for  deepness  in  larning  ;  for 
it's  then  he  rhymes  it  out  of  him,  that  it  would 
do  one  good  to  hear  him.' 

"  '  So,'  said  I,  '  you  think  that  a  love  of  drink- 
ing poteen  is  a  sign  of  talent  in  a  schoolmaster  ? ' 

" '  Ay,  or  in  any  man  else,  sir,'  he  replied. 
*  Look  at  tradesmen,  and  'tis  always  the  clev- 
erest that  3^ou'll  find  fond  of  the  dhrink  !  If 
you  had  hard  Mat  and  Frazher,  the  other  even- 
ing, at  it  —  what  a  hare  Mat  made  of  him  !  but 
he  was  just  in  proper  tune  for  it,  being,  at  the 
time,  purty  well  I  thank  you,  and  did  not  lave 
him  a  leg  to  stand  upon.  Ho  took  him  in 
Euclid's  Ailments  and  Logicals,  and  proved  in 
Frazher's  teeth,  that  the  candlestick  before  them 
was  the  church-steeple,  and  Frazher  liimself  the 
parson  ;  and  so  sign  was  on  it,  the  other  couldn't 
disprove  it,  but  had  to  give  in.' " 

The  schoolroom  scenes  in  "  The  Iledge- 
School "  are  wonderful  in  dialogue  and  as  genre 
pictures,  and  impress  the  reader  with  a  sense  of 
reality  as  vivid  as  the  printed  page  can  convey. 
One  or  two  extracts  from  tlic  story  will  illus- 
trate this,   the   first   a  passage   describing  the 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE    PEASANTRY       175 

scholars.  Surrounding  a  large  turf  fire  in  the 
centre  of  the  schoolhouse  floor  is  a  circle  of 
urchins  — 

"  Sitting  on  the  bare  earth,  stones,  and  has- 
socks, and  exhibiting  a  series  of  speckled  shins, 
all  radiating  towards  the  fire  like  sausages  on  a 
Poloni  dish.  There  they  are  —  wedged  as  close 
as  they  can  sit  ;  one  with  half  a  thigh  off  his 
breeches,  another  with  half  an  arm  off  his  tat- 
tered coat  —  a  third  without  breeches  at  all, 
wearing  as  a  substitute  a  piece  of  his  mother's 
old  petticoat  pinned  about  his  loins  —  a  fourth, 
no  coat  —  a  fifth,  with  a  cap  on  him,  because  he 
has  got  a  scald,  from  having  sat  under  the  juice 
of  fresh  hung  bacon  —  a  sixth  with  a  black  eye 
—  a  seventh  two  rags  about  his  heels  to  keep 
his  kibes  clean  —  an  eighth  crying  to  get  home, 
because  he  has  got  a  headache,  though  it  may  be 
as  well  to  hint,  that  there  is  a  drag-hunt  to  start 
from  beside  his  father's  in  the  course  of  the  day. 
In  this  ring,  with  his  legs  stretched  in  a  most 
lordly  manner,  sits,  upon  a  deal  chair.  Mat  him- 
self, with  his  hat  on,  basking  in  the  enjoyment 
of  unlimited  authority.  His  dress  consists  of 
a  black  coat,  considerably  in  want  of  repair, 
transferred  to  his  shoulders  through  the  means 
of  a  clothes-broker  in  the  county-town  ;  a  white 
cravat,  round  a  large  stuffiiig,  having  that  part 
which  comes  in  contact  with  the  chin  somewliat 
streaked  with  brown  —  a  black  waistcoat,  with 
one  or  two  '  tooth-an'-egg '  metal  buttons 
sewed  on  where  the  original  had  fallen  off  — 


176  IRISH  LIFE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 

black  corduroy  inexpressibles,  twice  dyed,  and 
sheep's-gray  stockings.  In  his  hand  is  a  large, 
broad  ruler,  the  emblem  of  his  power,  the 
woeful  instrument  of  executive  justice  and  the 
signal  of  terror  to  all  within  his  jurisdiction. 
In  a  corner  below  is  a  pile  of  turf,  where,  on 
entering,  every  boy  throws  his  two  sods,  with 
a  hitch  from  under  his  left  arm.  He  then 
comes  up  to  the  master,  catches  his  forelock 
with  finger  and  thumb,  and  bobs  down  his  head, 
by  way  of  making  him  a  bow,  and  goes  to  his  seat. 
Along  the  walls  on  the  ground  is  a  series  of 
round  stones,  some  of  them  capped  with  a  straw 
collar  or  hassock,  on  which  the  boys  sit ;  others 
have  bosses,  and  many  of  them  hobs  —  a  light 
but  compact  kind  of  boggy  substance  found  in 
the  mountains.  On  these  several  of  them  sit; 
the  greater  number  of  them,  however,  have  no 
seats  whatever,  but  squat  themselves  down, 
without  compunction,  on  the  hard  floor.  .  .  . 
Near  the  master  himself  are  the  larger  boys, 
from  twenty-two  to  fifteen  —  shaggy-headed 
slips,  with  loose-breasted  shirts  lying  open  about 
their  bare  chests  ;  ragged  colts,  with  white,  dry, 
bristling  beards  u[)on  them,  that  never  knew  a 
razor  ;  strong  stockings  on  their  legs  ;  heavy 
brogues,  with  broad,  nail-paved  soles  ;  and 
breeches  open  at  the  knees." 

In  "  Tlie  Poor  Scholar  "  Carleton  j)resents  a 
social  type  as  distinctly  the  product  of  the  penal 
laws  as  the  hedge-schoolmaster.     The  so-called 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   PEASANTRY       177 

"poor  scholars  "  were  recruited  from  the  poorest 
of  the  peasantry  in  districts  where  next  to  no 
Catholic  education  could  be  had,  where  the  stir- 
ring lad  might  contrive  to  learn  reading  and 
writing,  but  scarcely  more. 

It  was  the  highest  ambition  of  the  Irish 
peasant  to  make  a  priest  of  his  boy,  as  it  was 
of  the  Scotch  peasant  to  see  his  son  a  minister 
of  the  Kirk.  If  a  boy  showed  a  love  for  "  the 
larninV'  was  eager  to  pursue  it,  and  generally 
clever  and  promising,  his  father  was  apt  to  des- 
tine him  for  the  priesthood.  A  subscription 
raised  among  the  neighbors  solved  the  question 
of  ways  and  means.  Thus  provided  with  a 
small  sum  to  start  him,  the  poor  scholar  made 
for  the  south  —  for  Munster,  the  paradise  of 
hedge-schoolmasters  and  the  goal  for  poor 
scholars.  The  sketch  of  Jemmy  M'Evoy,  the 
poor  scholar  of  Carle  ton's  tale,  will  bring  out 
the  general  character  and  experiences  of  the 
class. 

Jemmy  M'Evoy  is  the  son  of  a  poor  man  who 
tills  a  *'  spot "  of  barren  farmland.  For  all  their 
drudgery  from  morning  to  night  and  from  year's 
end  to  year's  end,  the  family  can  scarce  keep 
body  and    soul  together.     Jemmy  resolves  to 


178  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

raise  his  old  father  from  distress,  or  die  in  the 
struggle.  He  plans  to  start  for  Munster  as  a 
poor  scholar  to  educate  himself  for  the  priest- 
hood, and  swears  he  will  never  return  until  he 
can  come  back  "a  priest  an'  a  gintleman." 
To  further  the  plan,  the  support  of  the  parish 
priest  is  enlisted.  He  puts  the  case  before  his 
congregation,  and  asks  from  them,  as  was  cus- 
tomary, a  generous  subscription  to  start  the 
poor  scholar  to  Munster  to  make  himself  "  a 
priest  an'  a  gintleman."  A  good  collection 
comes  in ;  his  funds  are  sewed  in  the  lining 
of  his  coat ;  and  the  bundle  is  over  his  shoulder. 
Then  follows  the  parting  with  mother  and  father 
and  brothers  and  sisters — an  uproar  of  grief,  last 
embraces,  and  benedictions  mingled  with  the 
bursts  of  lamentation  ;  then  the  open  road  for 
the  south  ;  kind  entertainment  by  the  way,  and 
no  pay  accepted  from  the  poor  scholar  ;  Munster 
at  last ;  a  hedge-school  receives  him,  and  the  first 
step  is  taken  toward  making  himself  "  a  priest 
an'  a  gintleman."  The  poor  scholar,  quick 
and  industrious  as  he  is,  serves  as  the  butt 
of  the  master's  gibes  and  insult,  and  the  victim 
of  his  brutal  temper.  As  a  climax  to  his  trials 
lie  catches  a  contagious    fever  that  is  raging. 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE    PEASAN'IRY       170 

The  master  then  promptly  turns  him  out  upon 
the  road.  Having  pulled  through  the  fever, 
steady  in  the  purpose  to  make  himself  a  priest 
and  relieve  the  destitution  of  his  family,  he 
returns  to  the  hedge-school  to  brave  again  the 
tyrannies  of  the  master.  The  poor  scholar's 
trials  end  happily,  however.  The  story  of  the 
master's  barbarity  gets  abroad,  and  brings  him 
kind  friends  who  send  him  to  a  good  school. 
In  due  time  he  is  ordained ;  returns  to  his 
home  in  the  north ;  is  received  by  his  own  with 
open  arms  and  pious  jubilations,  and  is  ''  a  priest 
an'  a  gintleman  "  at  last. 

In  Valentine  M'  Clutchy  (a  powerful  book,  de- 
spite its  grossly  partisan  spirit)  Carleton  gives 
a  detailed  study  of  the  character  and  career  of 
an  Irish  land  agent  or  middleman  of  the  worst 
type,  of  Orange  bigotry  at  work,  and  of  the 
so-called  New  Reformation  movement  in  its 
attempts  at  the  conversion  of  Papists. 

There  are  middlemen,  or  land  agents,  every- 
where, but  political  and  social  conditions  gave 
Ireland  a  type  of  its  own.  The  course  of  Irish 
history  had  made  most  of  its  landlords  Protes- 
tants. The  position  of  an  Irish  Protestant 
landlord  living    in   the    midst    of    a    degraded 


180  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

population,  differing  from  him  in  race  and  re- 
ligion, had  but  little  attraction,  and  hence  the 
landlord  was  apt  to  live  abroad,  especiall}^  if  he 
possessed  English  as  well  as  Irish  estates,  as 
many  Irish  landlords  did.  The  system  of  mid- 
dlemen was  the  necessary  result  of  this  absen- 
teeism. The  landlord,  disliking  the  trouble 
and  difficulty  of  collecting  rents  from  a  number 
of  small  tenants,  abdicated  his  active  functions, 
and  let  his  land  for  a  long  term,  and,  generally 
speaking,  at  a  moderate  rent,  to  a  large  tenant, 
or  middleman,  who  took  upon  himself  the  whole 
practical  management  of  the  estate,  raised  the 
rent  of  the  landlord,  and  over  and  above  this 
made  a  profit  for  himself  by  subletting.  Some- 
times the  head  tenant  followed  the  example  of 
his  landlord,  and,  abandoning  all  serious  indus- 
try, left  the  care  of  the  property  to  his  sub- 
tenant, and  in  turn  became  an  absentee.  He, 
perhaps,  sublet  his  tenancy  again  at  an  in- 
creased rent,  and  the  process  continued  until 
there  might  be  a  half-dozen  persons  between 
the  landlord  and  the  cultivator  of  the  soil. 
The  fact  that  many  of  the  landlords  were 
almost  perpetual  absentees,  together  A\ith  tlie 
fact  that  many  of  the  Irish  laud  agents   were 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE   PEASANTRY       181 

magistrates  as  well,  gave  the  Ii-ish  middlemen 
almost  unlimited  power  for  tyranny  and  oppres- 
sion, and  made  them  the  pest  of  Irish  society. 

Valentine  M'Clutchy,  who  gives  this  book  its 
name,  has  worked  himself  up  from  process- 
server  to  bailiff,  from  bailiff  to  constable,  from 
constable  to  under-agent,  or  practical  manager 
of  the  estate,  and  thence  to  chief  agent  or  mid- 
dleman. This  last  position  he  obtained  by  dis- 
placing the  good  agent  who  preceded  him.  The 
young  absentee  lord,  who  spent  his  time  in 
fashionable  dissipations  in  England,  was,  be- 
tween his  betting  books,  his  yacht,  and  his 
mistress,  always  in  desperate  financial  straits. 
M'Clutchy  contrived  to  convince  his  lordship 
that  the  old  agent  was  too  soft  and  humane. 
He  would  handle  the  estate,  he  assured 
the  young  lord,  less  tenderly,  and  bring 
in  a  larger  return.  So  the  estate  changed 
hands,  and  M'Clutchy  became  head  agent. 
Once  in  the  position,  it  is  his  principle  to 
make  the  interest  of  landlord  and  tenant  sub- 
servient to  his  own.  To  put  this  principle  into 
practice  he  strengthens  his  arm  to  the  utmost. 
As  middleman  he  has  all  the  power  of  a  land- 
lord.    He  next  aims  for   the  magistracy.     A 


182  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

bribe  sets  liim  upon  the  bench  ;  and  the  powers 
of  the  landlord  for  good  or  ill  are  backed  by  the 
arm  of  the  law. 

He  now  goes  to  work  in  the  most  approved 
style  of  bad  agent.  The  schools,  which  the 
good  agent,  his  predecessor,  had  patronized, 
are  opposed  on  the  ground  that  they  make  the 
peasant  independent  and  politically  unmanage- 
able. With  apparent  good  nature  he  allows  the 
tenants  to  fall  into  arrears  with  their  rent ;  in 
reality  he  is  lax  that  he  may  get  a  lever  to  force 
stiff-necked  peasants  into  compliance  with  his 
dictation  at  election  time  on  penalty  of  imme- 
diate eviction.  He  tricks  them  by  defective 
leases.  They  have  trusted  his  verbal  promises 
only  to  find  them  brazenly  forgotten,  or  denied  at 
convenience.  They  have  known  him  to  secrete 
papers  in  the  thatch  eaves  of  their  cabins — forged 
proofs  of  treasonable  plots  of  which  they  are 
innocent.  They  have  seen  his  drunken,  profli- 
gate son  outrage  their  feelings  in  times  of  deep 
distress  by  making  the  tenure  of  house  and  home 
conditional  upon  a  daughter's  or  sister's  dishonor. 
The  tenants  have  come  to  fear  liis  power  and 
his  craft,  and  to  recognize  as  well  the  business 
capacity  tliat  guides  his  cruelty  and  rapacity. 


THE    NOVELISTS   OF   THE    PEASANTRY       183 

Though  M'Clutchy  has  the  peasantry  under 
his  heel,  is  on  the  road  to  wealth,  and  com- 
mands a  kind  of  consideration  in  the  country 
as  a  stirring  man  of  business  and  a  strong  ally 
of  the  government,  all  does  not  run  smooth. 
The  temper  of  the  peasantry  becomes  ferocious. 
A  coward  as  well  as  a  tyrant,  he  fears  for 
his  life,  and  to  make  himself  secure  in  his 
tyranny  determines  to  raise  an  Orange  Yeo- 
manry Cavalry  corps.  A  petition  to  the  gov- 
ernment for  its  incorporation  being  granted,  he 
organizes  the  corps,  captains  it  himself,  and 
makes  it  the  instrument  of  his  outrages  and  the 
support  of  his  personal  and  official  tyrannies. 

This  is  the  one  of  the  Irish  novels  that,  in 
following  the  career  of  M'Clutchy  as  a  zealous 
Orangeman,  master  of  an  Orange  lodge,  and 
captain  of  a  corps  of  Orange  cavalry,  best  suc- 
ceeds in  putting  the  reader  on  intimate  terms 
with  the  Orangemen  in  general,  their  place  in 
the  Irish  life  of  the  first  decade  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  their  prejudices,  feelings,  aims, 
and  manners. 

The  Orangemen  took  their  name,  of  course, 
from  William  of  Orange,  who  was  regarded  as 
the  champion  of  Irish  Protestantism.     In  its 


184  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

origin  Orangeism  was  an  outgrowth  of  the  feuds 
between  the  lower  ranks  of  Papists  and  Protes- 
tants in  the  north  —  at  first  only  the  Protestant 
side  of  a  party  fight.  Subsequently,  when  there 
was  imminent  danger  of  a  French  invasion,  tlie 
gentlemen  of  the  Ascendency,  who  had  hitherto 
held  aloof  from  the  society,  placed  themselves 
at  the  head  of  their  Protestant  tenantr}^  and 
began  organizing  the  Orangemen  into  lodges. 
The  country  gentlemen  who  identified  them- 
selves with  the  Orangemen  were  almost  all 
bigots,  frantically  opposed  to  admitting  Catho- 
lics to  Parliament,  or  to  any  concession  of 
Catholic  relief,  and  red-hot  champions  of  the 
existing  constitution  of  church  and  state.  The 
society,  under  their  control,  became  a  political 
association,  in  recognized  alliance  with  the  gov- 
ernment, against  Catholic  disaffection,  and  every 
kind  of  rebel,  Protestant  or  Catholic.  A  desire 
on  the  part  of  the  Orangemen  to  enroll  them- 
selves into  cavalry  and  infantry  corps  for  the 
defence  of  the  Protestant  constitution  was  re- 
garded with  favor  by  the  government,  and  mem- 
bers recruited  from  the  Orange  lodges  were 
incorporated  as  Yeomanry  Corps.  A  book  of 
rules    and    regulations    circulated    among    the 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE   PEASANTRY      185 

members  of  the  society,  showed  that  it  aimed  at 
high  moral  excellence.  Every  Orangeman  was 
expected,  it  was  said,  to  have  a  sincere  love  for 
his  Maker,  to  be  an  enemy  to  brutality,  and  to 
promote  the  honor  of  King  and  country  and 
the  principles  of  Protestant  Ascendency.  He 
was  expected  to  refrain  from  cursing  and  in- 
temperance, and  to  combat,  so  far  as  was  in  his 
power,  the  forces  of  atheism  and  anarchy. 

Carleton's  satire  turns  upon  the  discrepancy 
between  the  high-flown  professions  and  the  ac- 
tual practice  of  the  Orangemen.  He  describes 
the  meeting  of  the  lodge  of  which  ^^d'Clutchy 
is  the  master.  The  lodge  room  is  reeking  with 
the  fumes  of  hot  punch  and  tobacco.  A  mixed 
company  is  assembled  —  Orange  blacksmiths, 
butchers,  bakers,  and  candlestick  makers,  pious, 
punch-loving  Dissenters,  grand  jurors,  hard- 
drinking  squires,  all  more  or  less  boisterously 
drunk,  singing  party  songs,  quarrelling,  and  now 
and  again  pausing  to  drink  in  due  form  the 
loyal  toast  to  "the  glorious,  pious,  and  immortal 
memory  of  the  great  and  good  King  William, 
who  saved  us  from  Popery,  brass  money,  and 
wooden  shoes,"  or  its  complement,  "  To  hell 
with  the  Pope."     From  such  meetings  as  these 


186  IRISH  LIFE   IX  IRISH  FICTION 

the  3^eomanry  not  infrequently  sallied,  when 
sufficiently  drunk,  to  ride  through  the  streets, 
firing  about  at  random,  singing,  and  shouting 
''  Any  money  for  the  face  of  a  papist,"  "  To 
hell  with  the  Pope,"  "Ram  down  the  Catholics," 
and  the  like.  Or  sometimes  they  might  pay  a 
visit  to  an  inoffensive  Catholic  family  —  to  sat- 
isfy a  private  grudge  perhaps  —  on  the  pretext 
of  searching  for  concealed  weapons,  routing  the 
household  out  of  bed,  turning  the  house  upside 
down,  insulting  the  women  folk,  and  terrifying 
all  hands  with  the  possibility  of  they  knew  not 
what  drunken  violence.  Or,  again,  they  might 
ride  to  the  house  of  the  priest,  startling  the 
good  man  from  his  rest  by  fii'ing  volleys  over 
his  house-top  (if  their  aim  was  steady  enough 
to  clear  it)  to  the  tune  of  "  Croppies  Lie  Down." 
But  this  was  only  boisterous  "  funning."  Their 
real  service  was  in  riding  with  M'Clutchy  to 
dispossess  poor,  rack-rented  tenants,  who,  per- 
haps, had  so  good  a  "back  "  in  the  country  that 
for  a  few  bailiffs  to  evict,  without  an  armed 
force,  was  out  of  the  question.  The  fate  of 
M'Clutchy  in  this  novel  was  not  infrequently 
the  fate  of  men  of  his  class.  The  bad  middle- 
man, unjust  magistrate,  and  violent  Oiangeman 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE    PEASANTRY      187 

was  found  dead  one  morning,  shot  through  the 
heart  by  a  peasant  whom  he  had  wronged. 

Carleton  throws  a  flood  of  light  on  the  secret 
societies,  which,  Catholic  or  Protestant,  and 
under  different  names,  were  so  startling  a 
feature  of  Irish  life.  In  most  of  his  tales  and 
novels  he  relies  for  a  strong  element  of  interest 
upon  these  societies  and  their  operations.  There 
is  a  romantic  appeal  in  the  mystery  that  hangs 
over  their  nocturnal  meetings,  and  the  desperate 
deeds  in  which  discovery  means  death  to  the 
perpetrator,  and  success  means  death  or  violence 
to  the  victim. 

Rody  the  Rover  is  devoted  exclusively  to  this 
subject.  Carleton  was  at  one  time  himself  a 
Ribbonman,  and,  so  far  at  least  as  the  operation 
and  effects  of  Ribbonism  are  concerned,  knew 
whereof  he  spoke.  According  to  the  theory  of 
this  story  Ribbonism  originated  with  a  set  of 
bold,  shrewd  rascals  who,  ready  to  stake  their 
lives  for  the  chance  of  gain,  and  pretending  to 
be  friends  of  the  peasantry  and  champions  of 
their  religion,  banded  them  together  and  incited 
them  to  violence.  Then  the  originators  of  the 
society,  who  were  in  the  secret  of  the  move- 
ments of  the  lodges  all  over  the  country,  would 


188  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

repair  at  their  convenience  to  Dublin  Castle, 
represent  themselves  as  in  a  position  to  make 
valuable  disclosures  as  to  the  plans  of  the  dis- 
affected peasantry,  provided  they  were  substan- 
tially remunerated  for  the  danger  they  ran  as 
informers. 

Rody,  the  central  figure  of  the  story,  is  an 
emissary  of  the  instigators  of  the  movement, 
and  his  procedure  is  meant  to  illustrate  the 
methods  of  effecting  its  organization.  The  field 
of  operations  is  a  little  village.  Here  a  young 
stranger  one  fine  day  makes  his  appearance.  He 
gives  himself  out  a  fugitive  from  justice.  In  a 
scrimmage  between  Catholics  and  Orangemen  he 
laid  an  Orangeman  low,  he  says,  and  the  man,  to 
get  him  in  trouble,  refused  to  recover.  This  of 
course  opens  all  hearts  and  homes  to  him.  Tom 
M'Mahon,  an  unsuspecting  young  peasant,  takes 
Rody  —  for  so  is  the  stranger  called  —  to  his 
own  home.  Plausible,  shrewd,  and  daring,  Rody 
insinuates  himself  into  M'Mahon's  friendship, 
and  finally  tells  him,  in  awful  secrecy,  that  he 
wishes  to  make  him  a  member  of  a  widespread 
conspiracy  for  the  liberation  of  their  country 
and  religion.  He  professes  himself  unable  to 
reveal  the  leaders  of  the  conspiracy,  but  darkly 


THE   XOVELTSTS   OF  THE   PEASANTRY       189 

hints  that  O'Connell  and  other  patriots  and 
Catholic  champions  are  behind  the  movement, 
though  their  safety  and  policy  compel  them  to 
denounce  the  society  publicly.  ^I'Mahon  takes 
these  overtures  in  good  faith,  and.  after  binding 
himself  by  an  oath  never  to  reveal  the  person 
who  has  made  the  communication  to  him,  the 
Ribbon  oath  itself  is  administered.  Having 
taken  the  oath  he  is  straightway  made  an  Arti- 
cle Bearer  (one  entitled  to  administer  the  oath 
to  others),  and  empowered  to  enroll  and  captain 
fifty  of  the  boys  of  the  neighborhood.  The 
story  proceeds  to  show  the  difficulties  Tom 
M'Mahon  found  in  controlling  his  men  after  he 
had  called  this  organization,  with  its  possibilities 
for  evil,  into  existence.  He  is  honest  and 
humane,  but  soon  the  control  of  the  men  gets 
into  other  hands.  Instead  of  aiming,  vaguely 
perhaps,  at  generous  religious  and  patriotic  ends, 
the  Ribbonmen,  now  led  by  the  base  and  igno- 
rant, make  their  society  subserve  plans  of  private 
spite,  and  are  ready  to  rush  into  acts  of  violence 
at  the  dictates  of  headlong  impulses  and  base 
passions.  Soon  the  whole  character  of  the  neigh- 
borhood changes.  The  midnight  meetings,  and 
the  whiskey-drinking  that  went  with  them,  broke 


190  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

up  habits  of  regular  industry.  Peace  was  gone  ; 
dark  passions  awoke  and  ruled,  with  bloodshed, 
riot,  and  conflagration  as  the  order  of  the  day 
and  night,  while  soldiers,  posses  of  sheriffs,  and 
peelers  were  ever  tramping  the  country-side. 
The  ending  of  the  story  emphasizes  the 
thought  of  the  whole  book.  Tom  M'Mahon, 
though  generous  and  honest,  is  accused  of  a 
murder  which  he  did  his  best  to  prevent  his 
brother  Ribbonmen  from  committing.  Rody  is 
instrumental  in  fastening  the  responsibility  of 
the  crime  upon  him.  M'Mahon,  though  inno- 
cent, is  executed.  The  instigators  of  all  tlie 
trouble,  who  are  back  of  Rody,  turn  informers 
and  are  handsomely  rewarded  by  the  govern- 
ment, a  reward  by  which  Rody  also  profits  in  his 
degree.  Thus,  in  Carleton's  view,  in  the  matter 
of  Ribbonism,  the  peasantry  are  blind  and  silly 
dupes  in  the  hands  of  rapacious  and  designing 
monsters,  who  play  the  part  of  double-faced 
traitors,  stir  up  disaffection  only  to  betray 
it  to  the  government,  and  grow  fat  upon  the 
proceeds.  Rody  the  Rover  is  said  to  have  pro- 
duced a  deep  impression  among  the  peasantry. 
Carleton  himself  claimed  it  resulted  in  the 
disbandment   of   six    hundred    Ribbon    lodges. 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF   THE    PEASANTRY       191 

True  as  Carleton's  picture  is  of  the  effects  of 
Ribbonism,  and  useful  and  convincing  as  was 
its  lesson  to  the  people  of  the  futility  of  accom- 
plishing their  ends  b}^  the  operation  of  secret 
societies  tliat  defied  the  law,  its  theory  of  the 
origin  of  Ribbonism  is  baseless.  The  origin  of 
the  society  is  wrapped  in  a  cloud  of  mystery 
and  uncertainty  which  investigation  has  not 
yet  dispelled. 

In  The  Black  Prophet,  Carleton  writes  the 
story  of  one  of  the  famines  that  from  time  to 
time  desolated  Ireland,  and  made  fearful  pages 
in  the  annals  of  the  most  distressful  country 
that  ever  yet  was  seen.  Before  a  background 
of  dreadful  and  harrowing  scenes  from  the  fam- 
ine of  1817  is  unfolded  a  tale  of  crime  and  guilt 
in  itself  sufficient  to  shadow  the  story  with 
gloom.  Carleton  was  a  young  man  at  the  time 
when  the  action  of  this  story  is  supposed  to  have 
occurred,  and  images  of  the  suffering  of  those 
days  seem  to  have  been  branded  upon  his  mem- 
ory, as  upon  the  memor}^  of  the  people  in  gen- 
eral, in  letters  of  fire.  Of  this  and  other  famines 
the  potato,  that  dangerous  and  demoralizing 
esculent,  Raleigh's  fatal  gift,  was  the  more 
immediate  cause.     It  was  the  staple,  almost  the 


192  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

only  food  of  the  people,  and  a  failure  of  the 
crop  meant  starvation. 

In  The  Black  Prophet  the  approach  of  this 
famine  of  1817,  and  the  succeeding  stages  in  its 
progress,  are  presented  in  special  instances  of 
tragic  distress.  It  opens  with  descriptions  of 
the  natural  phenomena  that  foretold  the  com- 
ing calamity  —  the  heavy  canopy  of  low,  dull 
clouds  that  emptied  themselves  in  ceaseless  rain 
upon  the  land ;  the  fields  that  should  have 
waved  with  ripe  grain  covered  only  with  thin, 
backward  crops ;  lowlands  ravaged  by  flood ; 
the  corn  prostrate  under  layers  of  mud  and 
gravel,  and  all  autumn's  bounty  destroyed  by 
the  wet  and  sunless  days  that  spoke  ominously 
of  imminent  dearth  and  destitution.  The 
famine  comes  in  course,  and  with  it  the  pesti- 
lence ;  and  the  progress  of  the  two  is  followed 
as  they  sweep  over  the  land,  leaving  terror  and 
desolation  in  their  train.  The  kitchens,  well- 
stocked  in  happier  times,  are  now  unfurnished. 
The  family  groups  are  sickly,  woe-worn,  marked 
by  the  look  of  care  and  depression  which  bad 
and  insufficient  food  impressed  upon  the  coun- 
tenance. Harrowing  pictures,  sparing  no  phys- 
ical  horror,  are  given  of  the   alliicted   people. 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   PEASANTRY       193 

Every  face  has  the  look  of  painful  abstraction, 
telling  plainly  of  the  sleepless  solicitation  of 
hunger  that  mingles  itself  with  every  thought 
and  act.  All  who  come  upon  the  scene  of  tlie 
story  bear  in  some  form  the  sorrowful  impress 
of  the  fatal  visitation  that  ravaged  the  land. 
Garments  hang  loose  about  wasted  persons ;  the 
eyes  move  with  a  dull  and  languid  motion  ;  the 
parchment  skin  clings  to  the  sharp  protruding 
bones. 

It  was  typhus  that  went  with  the  famine  of 
1817,  a  trying  disease  both  to  sufferers  and  to 
those  who  tend  them  —  slow  in  coming,  long  to 
stay,  and  attended  by  a  train  of  tedious  and 
lingering  miseries  that  were  increased  a  hun- 
dred-fold by  destitution  and  want.  All  the 
feelings  of  family  affection,  almost  morbidly 
intense  among  the  lower  Irish,  were  allowed, 
while  the  disease  ran  its  course,  full  and  painful 
time  to  be  racked  to  the  limit  of  human 
suffering. 

The  misery  had  many  aspects.  Everywhere 
were  reminders  of  the  gloomy  triumph  famine 
and  pestilence  were  achieving  over  the  coun- 
try. The  roads  were  black  with  funerals,  and 
chapel   bells  busy  ringing  dead   men's   knells. 


194  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

Numberless  fever-stricken  mendicants  died  in 
the  temporary  sheds  erected  for  them  by  the 
roadsides.  Families  hitherto  respectable  and 
independent  cast  aside  shame  and  pride,  and  in 
the  frightful  struggle  between  life  and  death 
went  about  soliciting  alms  with  the  clamor 
and  importunity  of  professional  beggars,  or, 
goaded  by  the  cravings  of  hunger,  fought 
like  vultures  for  the  dole  of  charity  at  the 
soup  shops,  or  other  public  depots  of  relief 
where  rations  of  bread  and  meal  were  dispensed. 
Not  tlie  least  of  the  trials  of  the  afflicted 
people  was  the  sight  of  the  bursting  granaries 
of  snug  farmers  and  miserly  meal-mongers 
who  found  their  profit  in  selling  little  doles 
of  meal  at  famine  prices ;  or  the  sight  of 
lines  of  heavily  laden  provision  carts  on  their 
way  to  neighboring  harbors  for  exportation, 
meeting  or  mingling  with  the  funerals  that 
were  continually  passing  along  the  highways. 
Hunger  breaks  through  stone  walls,  and,  as 
might  be  expected  at  such  a  time,  the  restraints 
that  normally  protect  property  were  disregarded. 
Starving  multitudes  in  the  ravening  madness  of 
famine  broke  into  and  pillaged  granaries  and 
mills,  or  attacked  the  cruel  misers,  who,  forced 


THE   NOVELISTS   OF  THE   PEASANTRY       195 

to  distribute  provisions  on  pain  of  death,  at  last 
became  charitable  with  a  bad  grace.  Provision 
carts  also  were  intercepted  by  starving  hordes 
who  helped  themselves  to  the  contents,  gobbling 
up  the  raw  meal  like  famished  maniacs,  or  stag- 
gering home  to  their  families  with  bundles  of 
the  precious  spoil. 

Tlie  Black  Prophet  is  a  lookout  upon  a  land 
laboring  under  a  grievous  affliction,  where  suf- 
fering, sorrow,  and  death  prevailed.  But  now 
and  again  the  horrors  of  famine  are  transfigured 
by  the  light  of  love  they  kindle,  by  the  profound 
sympathies,  the  heroic  self-sacrifice,  the  beauti- 
ful spirit  of  piety  and  lowly  resignation  that  are 
awakened.  This  terrible  calamity  even  wears 
at  moments  the  expression  of  benevolence,  as 
when  it  drives  black  passions  from  the  hearts 
of  the  peasants,  and  wipes  out  hates  and  feuds 
to  make  of  old  enemies  kind  friends  ready  with 
help  and  pity.  And  there  are  lovely  and  mem- 
orable characters  whose  personalities  remain  as 
old  acquaintances  after  the  incidents  of  the 
story  are  forgotten  —  old  men  and  women  with 
the  rugged  and  primitive  grandeur  of  Old 
Testament  people ;  Mave  Sullivan,  a  character 
sweet  and  sound,  made  all  of  gentleness,  firm- 


196  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

ness,  purity,  and  love ;  and  Sally  M'Gowan, 
irresistibly  interesting  in  the  fierce  untamed 
beauty  of  a  mixed  nature,  swept  by  the  tides  of 
impulse  to  evil  or  good. 

The  Black  Prophet  is  a  book  which  no  one  can 
read  with  indifference.  It  is  written  from  the 
heart  of  the  author  saddened  by  the  spectacle  of 
the  terrible  affliction  upon  his  countrymen.  Its 
pictures  are  dreadful  as  a  new  Inferno.  The 
atmosphere  of  this  story  of  suffering  and  crime 
is  one  of  deadening  gloom,  and  it  haunts  the 
mind  at  last  with  a  general  sense  of  the  appal- 
ling disasters  to  which  man,  body  and  spirit,  is 
exposed. 


CHAPTER  IV 

TYPES   AND   TYPICAL  INCIDENTS 

Among  the  types  of  Irish  fiction  the  ladies 
naturally  have  the  precedence.  Unhappily  the 
lady  heroines  of  the  novelists  of  the  gentry  are 
not  within  measurable  distance  of  doing  justice 
to  the  charm  of  their  originals.  The  first  native 
flower  among  them  is  the  Lady  Geraldine  of 
Miss  Edgeworth's  JEnnui.  It  is  she  who  brings 
to  her  feet  the  blas^  Earl  of  Glenthorn,  an 
English-bred  exquisite,  proof  against  the  fash- 
ionable graces  of  London  belles.  Eiiriui  in  part 
records  the  earl's  impressions  of  this  young  Irish 
lady  who  has  fascinated  him,  and  who  is  so 
different  from  the  English  ladies  he  has  known. 
He  finds  her  more  animated  in  conversation,  a  lit- 
tle more  rhetorical  in  her  speech,  and  a  little  more 
demonstrative  in  gesture.  There  is  a  graceful 
rapidity  and  point  in  her  thoughts,  and  a  touch 
of  eloquence  in  her  ready  expression  of  them. 
197 


198  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

In  her  manner  she  is  unconstrained,  candid,  and 
affable.  Though  without  an  Irish  accent,  prop- 
erly speaking,  she  yet  has  certain  inflections 
unmistakably  Hibernian.  She  is  truly  Irish  in 
her  disdain  for  those  of  her  countrywomen  who 
ape  the  accent  and  manners  of  English  women 
of  fashion.  The  earl  finds  a  charm,  too,  in  the 
raciness  of  Irish  wit  and  the  oddity  of  Irish 
humor  that  play  brightly  through  her  talk. 
A  love  of  fun  that  found  an  outlet  sometimes  in 
a  practical  joke  upon  the  affectations  or  snob- 
bishness of  the  company  reminded  him  that  she 
was  not  cut  after  the  English  pattern.  Lady 
Geraldine's  wit  turns  naturally  upon  what  was 
antipathetic  to  the  Irish  temperament  —  upon 
stiffness,  affectation,  undue  solemnity,  and  all 
the  sworn  enemies  of  the  keen  natural  perception 
of  humbug  and  incongruity.  English  noblemen 
and  pretentious  gentlemen  from  the  castle,  mili- 
tary and  other,  with  arrogance  and  pomposity 
unsupported  by  natural  ability,  shunned  the 
bright  shower  of  her  raillery,  or  were  brought 
to  the  dust  perhaps  by  the  stiletto  wit  which 
though  brandished  nonchalantly  still  dealt  mor- 
tal thrusts. 

All  the  othcM-  Irisli  ladi(!S  of  Miss  Ed u'c worth's 


TYPES  AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  199 

national  tales,  both  heroines  and  minor  women, 
have  about  them  a  fatal  conventionality  of  sen- 
timent, manners,  speech,  and  act.  They  are  like 
embodiments  of  the  chapter  on  "Female  Accom- 
plishments" in  Practical  Education.  They  play, 
sing,  sketch,  speak  French,  talk  poetry — in  short 
have  all  the  polite  drawing-room  acquirements. 
Though  carefully  observed,  and  correct  in  the 
single  traits  of  character,  they  lack  the  spark 
of  life. 

Lever's  heroines,  and  his  minor  women  too, 
excepting  the  comic  ones,  are  in  their  own  way 
as  vague  and  conventional  as  jNIiss  Edgeworth's. 
His  fun  about  the  sex  is  always  better  than  his 
earnest,  and  that  love  has  a  place  in  his  fiction 
at  all  is  only  a  concession  to  the  conventions 
of  the  novel.  There  is  an  exception  to  these 
remarks,  however,  for  Baby  Blake,  Charles 
O'Malley's  cousin,  is  quite  alive,  a  wild  flower 
of  the  western  soil,  and  worth  all  the  rest  of  his 
high-born,  high-bred,  and  conventional  leading 
ladies  put  together. 

The  youngest  of  Charles  O'Malley's  girl  cous- 
ins —  hence  her  nickname  Baby  Blake  —  is  a 
fun-loving,  breezy  young  lady ;  in  manners  the 
perfection  of  carelessness  and  ease;  ardent, warm- 


200  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

hearted,  and  with  a  spirit  and  temper  of  her 
own.  She  dotes  on  the  army,  and  adores  danc- 
ing and  riding.  It  is  this  young  lady  who,  after 
O'Malley's  return  from  his  first  campaign,  rides 
to  O'Malley  Castle  and  calls  upon  her  old  play- 
fellow cousin  Charles,  just  to  see  Avhy  cousin 
Charles  has  not  called  upon  her  ;  who,  not  being 
promptly  admitted  by  the  door  makes  her  way 
into  the  drawing-room  by  a  window,  where  she 
is  discovered  by  her  cousin,  on  his  return,  seated 
at  the  piano,  singing  with  comic  gusto  the  "Man 
for  Galway,"  to  her  own  tripping  accompani- 
ment; who,  after  greetings  exchanged,  charms 
her  cousin  by  the  arch  apology  for  the  rent  in 
her  riding-habit,  the  result  of  the  informal 
entrance  by  the  window,  which  she  displays  by 
thrusting  through  the  torn  garment  a  pretty 
foot ;  and  who,  laughing  at  Charlie's  hesita- 
tion to  invite  her  to  lunch  in  bachelor's  hall, 
coolly  settles  herself  as  his  guest.  She  is 
much  the  same  sort  of  girl  as  the  Kitty 
Dwyer  of  Sir  Jasper  Careiv^  who  "was  never 
out  of  humor,  could  ride  anything  that  ever 
was  backed,  didn't  care  what  she  wore,  never 
known  to  be  sick,  sulky,  or  sorry  for  any 
thing."     Lever  lias  a  way  of  summing  up  in  a 


J 


TYPES   AND  TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  201 

song  the  best  things  of  his  prose ;  and  so  in  this 
case.  Baby  Blake  is,  in  all  but  name,  the  Mary- 
Draper  of  the  song. 

"  Don't  talk  to  me  of  London  dames, 
!N'or  rave  about  your  foreign  flames, 
That  never  lived  —  except  in  drames, 

Nor  shone,  except  on  paper ; 
I'll  sing  you  'bout  a  girl  I  knew, 
Who  lived  in  Balh^rvhacmacrew, 
And,  let  me  tell  you,  mighty  few 

Could  equal  Mary  Draper. 

"  Her  cheeks  were  red,  her  eyes  were  blue, 
Her  hair  was  brown,  of  deepest  hue, 
Her  foot  was  small,  and  neat  to  view. 

Her  waist  was  slight  and  taper ; 
Her  voice  was  music  to  your  ear, 
A  lovely  brogue,  so  rich  and  clear, 
Oh,  the  like  I  ne'er  again  shall  hear 

As  from  sweet  Mary  Draper. 

"  She'd  ride  a  waU,  she'd  drive  a  team. 
Or  with  a  fly  she'd  whip  a  stream, 
Or  maybe  sing  you  '  Rousseau's  Dream,' 

For  nothing  could  escape  her; 
I've  seen  her,  too  —  upon  my  word  — 
At  sixty  yards  bring  down  a  bird  ; 
Oh  !  she  charmed  all  the  Forty-third  ! 

Did  lovely  Mary  Draper. 

"  And  at  the  spring  assizes  ball, 
The  junior  bar  would  one  and  all 
For  all  her  fav'rite  dances  call, 
And  Harry  Deane  would  caper ; 


202  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

Lord  Clare  would  then  forget  his  lore, 
King's  Counsel,  voting  law  a  bore, 
Were  proud  to  figure  on  the  floor, 
For  love  of  Mary  Draper. 

"The  parson,  priest,  sub-sheriff,  too  — 
Were  all  her  slaves  —  and  so  would  you, 
If  you  had  only  but  one  view 

Of  such  a  face  and  shape,  or 
Her  pretty  ankles  —  but,  ohone  ! 
It's  only  west  of  old  Athlone 
Such  girls  were  found  —  and  now  they're  gone  ; 
So  here's  to  Mary  Draper."  ^ 

Of  the  peasant  women  of  the  novelists  of  the 
peasantry  there  is  perhaps  no  type  which  Carle- 
ton  has  not  presented  more  successfully  than 
any  of  his  brother  novelists.  Here  he  shows 
the  master  hand.  In  the  peasant  girls,  Una 
O'Brien  of  Fardarougha^  Mave  Sullivan  of  TJie 
Black  Prophet,  and  Kathleen  of  Tlie  Emigrants 
of  Ahadarra,  he  embodies  the  traits  of  his  ideal 
of  young  womanhood.  These  maidens  are  all  of 
one  type,  but  with  the  individual  variations  that 
give  to  each  the  freshness  of  a  new  creation. 
Carleton's  heroines  are  generally  introduced  in 
brief  descriptions,  tributes  of  admiration  to  the 
charms  of  his  liumble  countrywomen.  Again 
1  Charles  O'Malley,  p.  420. 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  203 

and  again  he  pauses  in  the  stories  to  dilate  with 
pride  upon  the  symmetry  of  their  forms,  rounded 
to  fuhiess  by  youth,  activity,  and  health,  upon 
the  unconstrained  freedom  of  bearing,  the  glow- 
ing hue  of  the  cheek,  the  power  of  the  glance, 
and  the  lively  charm  of  ever  changing  expression. 

Una  O'Brien,  one  of  the  loveliest  of  Carle- 
ton's  heroines,  has  in  a  high  degree  the  wonder- 
ful capacity  for  the  happiness  of  pure  love, 
which  she  shares  with  the  others  of  her  class, 
and  with  it  a  melancholy  that  drifts  like  a 
cloud  over  the  brightest  joy,  suggesting  fears 
that  such  exalted  happiness  is  too  good  to  last, 
and  that  some  catastrophe  will  shatter  it  like  a 
dream.  She  has,  too,  the  alert  and  sensitive  con- 
science that,  even  in  the  innocent  rapture  of  the 
first  meetings  with  her  lover,  is  awake,  and 
prompts  a  prayer  that  there  may  be  nothing  of 
guilt  in  the  stolen  trysts.  In  the  fervor  of  her 
love  Una  is  like  the  whole  company  of  these 
heroines,  as  she  is  also  in  the  high-strung  nature, 
that  often  breaks  under  the  tension  of  extreme 
grief  or  anxiety  —  in  Una's  case  into  the  de- 
lirium of  fever. 

Mave  Sullivan,  famed  for  "  the  fair  face  and 
the  good  heart,"  who  moves  like  a  good  angel 


204  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

through  the  famine  scenes  of  The  Black  Prophet^ 
and  changes,  under  the  stunning  calamities  of 
the  famine  and  pestilence,  from  the  mild  and 
gentle  girl  with  a  garland  of  unostentatious  vir- 
tues, to  the  woman  of  resolute  spirit  and  heroic 
devotion,  is  an  embodiment  of  that  touching 
spirit  of  charity  so  generally  a  possession  of 
the  Irish  peasant.  With  a  heroism  that  over- 
comes the  peasant's  mortal  fear  of  contagion, 
she  ministers  at  the  bedsides  of  her  neigh- 
bors, sharing  with  them  her  last  crust  and  last 
potato.  She  has,  too,  the  Irish  gift  of  sym- 
pathy, and  with  it  a  serenity  of  spirit  that 
comes  from  her  transparent  goodness,  purity, 
and  guileless  sincerity,  and  gives  her  a  strange 
power  over  those  troubled  in  mind,  or  in  sick- 
ness and  affliction.  Mave's  affection  for  Condy 
Dalton  is  the  same  as  that  of  Una  for  the  hero 
of  Fardarougha,  kindling  into  a  warmer  devo- 
tion as  misfortune  and  poverty  are  poured  upon 
him. 

Kathleen  of  the  Emifjrants  of  Ahadarj-a,  the 
loveliest,  perhaps,  of  all  the  peasant  heroines,  in 
her  devotion  to  her  lover  shows  a  passion  as 
pure,  fine,  and  unselfish  as  that  of  Mave  and 
Una.     When  her  parents  urge  her  to  renounce 


TYPES   AND  TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  205 

her  manly  lover  for  the  suitor  of  their  choice, 
a  shifty  fellow  and  rustic  profligate,  who  will 
bring  her  goods  and  land,  she  rebukes  them 
with  a  simple  dignity  that  leaves  them  abashed 
with  the  sense  that  they  are  dealing  with  one 
moved  by  better  motives  than  their  own.  Zeal 
for  the  faith,  strong  in  all  these  heroines,  is  in 
Kathleen  stern  and  uncompromising,  and  disputes 
with  love  the  sway  of  a  master  passion.  Con- 
vinced by  evidence  (false  it  appears  later),  in 
spite  of  herself,  that  her  lover,  consulting  his  in- 
terests, has  voted  for  a  candidate  whose  princi- 
ples are  hostile  to  their  religion,  and  has  soiled 
his  hands  with  a  bribe,  she  renounces  him  in  the 
offended  piide  of  piinciple,  and  in  chagrin  that 
she  could  have  fixed  her  affection  upon  a  man 
capable  of  things  base  and  dishonorable. 

Hannah,  the  sister  of  Kathleen,  described  by  her 
mother  as  "  a  madcap,  ...  an  antick  crather, 
dear  knows  —  her  heart's  in  her  mouth  every 
minute  of  the  day  ;  an'  if  she  gets  through  the 
world  wid  it  always  as  light,  poor  girl,  it'll  be 
well  for  her,"  ^  is  a  type  that,  with  the  same 
fine  traits  for  the  groundwork  of  her  nature  as 
the  heroines  just  mentioned,  shades  off  from  them 
1  Emigrants  of  Ahadarra,  p.  518. 


206  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

by  the  possession  of  a  temperament  more  mirth- 
ful and  lively,  and  a  larger  measure  of  the  win- 
ning caprice  that  gives  more  or  less  of  piquancy 
to  them  all.  In  Hannah  may  be  noted  one  other 
striking  trait  of  the  peasant  heroines  of  the 
joyous  type.  Her  mirth  is  not  inconsiderate 
laughter  —  "the  crackling  of  thorns  under  the 
pot ;  "  it  is  a  mirth  tempered  as  if  by  a  sense, 
half  unconscious  perhaps,  that  heedless  levity  is 
out  of  keeping  in  a  world  where  sorrow  and 
disaster  are  at  large. 

The  Irish  peasant,  weak  on  the  side  of  restraint 
and  reason,  is  in  an  eminent  degree  moved  by 
impulse  and  passion,  and  runs  the  gamut  of 
emotion,  with  changes  of  lightning  rapidity,  from 
hate  to  love  and  from  fierceness  to  tenderness. 
Sarah  M'Gowan  of  The  Black  Prophet  is  a 
satisfactory  embodiment  of  these  tendencies. 
Reared  by  her  guilty  father  and  evil  stepmother 
in  a  gloomy  atmosphere  of  dark  passions,  and 
amidst  ignoble  surroundings,  she  is  very  different 
from  Una,  Kathleen,  and  Mave,  who  come  from 
the  best  peasant  liomes,  where  purity,  cheerful 
kindliness,  and  mutual  affection  reign,  and 
who,  though  never  insipidly  angelic,  seem  still 
all    goodness.     Of    Sarah    M'Gowan's    nature. 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  207 

attuned,  as  it  is,  to  strong  impulses  and  prompt 
to  respond  to  every  stimulus  to  good  or  evil,  a 
moral  beauty,  despite  flaws,  is  the  distinction,  as 
it  is  the  distinction  of  the  heroines  just  passed 
in  review;  and  this  beauty  expresses  itself  in  gen- 
erous acts  that  render  the  character  irresistibly 
attractive.  She  is  a  girl  who  in  anger  stops  at 
nothing ;  whom  people  shrink  from  vexing ;  as 
generally  feared  as  loved ;  with  an  instinctive 
sense  of  honor  and  goodness  that  shows  itself 
now  in  fierce  scorn  for  what  is  mean,  now  in 
softer  virtues.  She  is  ready  to  stand  by  her 
father,  murderer  though  he  be,  if  he  will  but 
assure  her  that  he  committed  the  crime  like  a 
man,  in  hot  blood,  not  like  a  cowardly  assassin. 
She  scorns  the  stepmother  who  would  desert 
her  father  when  ignominy  and  guilt  were  on 
his  head,  and  join  the  world  against  him.  The 
soul  of  candor,  she  hates  sham  and  falsehood. 
With  a  fierce  contempt  she  strips  from  her  father 
every  shred  of  the  h3"pocrisy  that  was  meant  to 
cover  his  malignity,  and  awes  that  hardened 
villain  to  silence.  The  same  scorching  disdain  is 
in  the  threat  with  which  she  silences  the  canting 
old  miser  whom  she  has  saved  from  the  vengeance 
of  a  starving  mob,  and  who  pretends  to  a  sym- 


208  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

pathy  with  the  poor  he  will  not  help.  And  her 
passions  range  from  this  hatred  of  meanness  to 
the  tenderest  affections.  She  appears  at  her 
best  when  the  famine  comes.  Then  the  fiery 
spirit  that  was  ready  on  provocation  to  thrust  her 
stepmother  through  with  a  knife,  and  laughed 
at  her  father's  commands  and  threats,  melts  to 
the  tenderest  sympathy  for  the  sufferers.  Her 
heart  goes  out  to  the  poor  wretches  lying  in 
ditches,  barns,  and  outhouses  without  a  hand  to 
reach  them  what  they  w^ant,  or  to  bring  them 
the  priest,  that  they  may  die  reconciled  with  the 
Almighty.  When  her  only  chance  of  happiness 
is  staked  upon  winning  the  man  she  loves,  and 
when  Mave  comes  between  them,  jealousy  spurs 
her  into  a  plot  against  the  character  of  her  rival ; 
but  her  generous  nature  soon  rights  itself,  throws 
off  the  temptation,  and,  not  to  be  outdone  in 
magnanimity  by  the  girl  who  had  risked  her  life 
to  nurse  her  through  the  fever,  impersonates 
Mave,  throws  herself  in  -the  way  of  those  who 
came  to  abduct  her,  and  saves  her  rival's  name 
at  the  risk  of  her  own  reputation. 

Among  other  women  of  Sarah's  type  are  the 
wife  of  the  coiner  in  Griffin's  Coiner^  and  the  Rose 
Galh  of  the  Battle  of  the  Factions^  who,  swinging 


V 


UNIVERSITY 
TYPES  AND  TYPICAL  INCrteNTS  209 


a  large  stone  in  her  apron,  struck  down  the  man 
who  had  laid  her  lover  low  before  her  eyes. 

Of  the  peasant  wives  and  mothera  Honor 
O'Donovan  of  Fardarouglia  and  Bridget 
M'Mahon  of  The  Emigrants  are  among  the 
finest  types.  Honor  O'Donovan  (Carleton's 
mother  is  said  to  have  been  the  original  of  the 
character),  best  of  all  the  characters  of  the 
novels,  represents  the  place  of  religion  in 
the  hearts  of  the  people.  When  her  only 
son,  though  innocent,  is  condemned  to  death, 
she  finds,  in  a  lively  sense  that  she  stands  under 
the  shadow  of  God's  power  and  love,  that 
which  saves  her  from  utter  desolation.  "  What 
is  religion  good  for,"  she  exclaims,  "if  it  does 
not  keep  the  heart  right,  an'  support  us  undher 
thrials  like  this,  what  'ud  it  be  then  but  a 
name  ? "  ^  It  is  her  religion  that  reminds 
her  that  suffering  here  is  the  lot  of  man,  and 
teaches  the  duty  of  resignation  as  becoming 
one  who  has  the  Christian's  hope.  The  man 
who  brings  the  news  of  her  son's  conviction  to 
her  marvels  at  it :  — 

"  God  pardon  me  for  swearin'  —  but  be  the 
book,  the  mother  has  the  thrue  ralligion  in  her 

1  Fardarougha,  p.  175. 


210  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

heart,  or  she'd  never  stand  it  the  way  she  does, 
an'  that  proves  what  I  was  expoundin'  ;  that 
afther  all,  the  sorrow  hap'o'rth  aquil  to  the 
grace  of  God."  ^ 

The  ready  sympathy  that  comes  from  the 
heart  and  goes  to  the  heart,  doubling  joys  and 
halving  sorrows,  belongs  also  to  Honor  O'Dono- 
van  in  full  measure.  It  shows  in  her,  directed 
by  religion,  a  solemn  and  sustaining  power. 
"  Fardarougha,  dear,"  Honor  says  to  her  hus- 
band when  he  is  beside  himself  with  grief  over 
the  impending  fate  of  his  son,  "be  a  man,  or 
rather  be  a  Christian.  It  was  God  gave  Con- 
nor to  us,  and  who  has  a  betther  right  to  take 
him  back  from  us  ?  Don't  be  flyin'  in  His  face 
bekase  he  don't  ordher  everything  as  you  wish."  ^ 
And  her  religion  brings  consolation  as  well 
as  resignation.  In  the  accents  of  simple  un- 
questioning faith,  which  had  fallen  so  often 
upon  Carleton's  own  ears,  and  which  is  echoed 
so  truly  in  the  words  of  his  peasant  women, 
Honor  exclaims  of  the  son  whom  she  is  about 
to  lose,  '■'•  As  for  Connor,  isn't  it  a  comfort  to 
know  that  the  breath  Avont  be  out  of  his  body, 
till  he's  a  bright  angel  in  heaven  ? 


3 


1  Fardarougha,  p.  175.         «  Ibid.,  p.  177.         »  Ibid.,  p.  181. 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  211 

Another  of  these  women  of  deep  religious 
spirit  and  quiet  enthusiasm  on  behalf  of  all 
goodness  is  Bridget  M'^Iahon.  She  well  repre- 
sents the  intensity  of  the  domestic  affections, 
and  the  fervent  tenderness  with  which  the 
peasant  wives  and  mothers  enshrined  those 
near  and  dear,  and  has  in  a  high  degree  the 
peasant's  sociability  and  hospitality.  A  graphic 
scene  from  The  Emigrants  well  illustrates  these 
things.  It  tells  how  Bridget,  "  ready  to  lep  out 
of  herself  wid  pure  joy,"  welcomed  home  the 
old  man  on  his  return  from  a  trip  to  Dublin. 
Bridget,  in  the  glad  excitement  of  meeting, 
after  a  long  absence,  thus  hails  the  head  of  the 
family :  — 

" '  Blessed  be  God,  Tom  darlin',  that  you're 
safe  back  to  us  !  An'  how  are  you,  avour- 
neen  ?  An'  wor  you  well  ever  since  ?  An 
there  was  nothin'  —  musha,  go  out  o'  this. 
Ranger,  you  thief  —  och,  God  forgive  me  !  what 
am  I  sayin'  ?  sure  the  poor  dog  is  as  glad  as  the 
best  of  us  —  arrah,  thin,  look  at  the  affectionate 
crathur,  a'most  beside  himself  !  Dora,  avillish, 
give  him  the  cold  stirabout  that's  in  the  skillet, 
jist  for  his  affection,  the  crathur.  Here,  Ranger 
—  Ranger,  I  say  —  oh  no,  sorra  one's  in  the 
house  now  but  yourself,  Tom.  Well,  an'  there 
was  nothin'  wrong  wid  you  ?  .  ,  . 


212  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

"  '  Shibby,  run  down  to  —  or  do  you,  Dora,  go, 
you're  the  souplest  —  to  Paddy  Mullen's  and 
Jemmy  Kelly's,  and  the  rest  of  the  neighbors, 
an'  tell  them  to  come  up,  that  your  father's 
home.  Run  now,  acushla,  an'  if  you  fall  don't 
wait  to  rise ;  an'  Shibby  darlin',  do  you  whang 
down  a  lot  of  that  bacon  into  rashers,  your 
father  must  be  at  death's  door  wid  hunger;  but 
wasn't  it  w^ell  I  thought  of  havin'  the  whiskey 
in,  for  you  see  after  Thursday  last  we  didn't 
know  what  minute  you'd  drop  in  on  us,  Tom, 
an'  I  said  it  was  best  to  be  prepared.   .   .   . 

" '  Here,'  she  said,  reappearing  with  a  huge 
bottle  in  one  hand  and  a  glass  in  the  other, 
'  a  sip  o'  the  right  sort  will  help  you  after  3"0ur 
long  journey;  you  must  be  tired,  be  coorse,  so 
take  this.* 

" '  Aisy,  Bridget,'  exclaimed  her  husband, 
'you'll  make  me  hearty.' 

" '  Throth  an'  I  will  fill  it,'  she  replied,  '  ay, 
an'  put  a  heap  on  it.  There,  now,  finish  that 
bumper.' 

•'  The  old  man,  with  a  smiling  and  happy  face, 
received  the  glass,  and  taking  his  wife's  hand  in 
his,  looked  at  her,  and  then  upon  them  all,  with 
an  expression  of  deep  emotion.  '  Bridget,  your 
health ;  childre',  all  your  healths  ;  and  here's  to 
Carriglass,  an'  may  we  long  live  happy  in  it,  as 
we  will,  please  God !  Peety,  not  forgettin' 
you!'  .  .  . 

'' '  Mere,  Bryan,'  said  Mrs.  M'Mahon,  '  lay 
that  bottle  on  the  dresser,  it's  not  worth  while 
puttin'  it  past  till  the  neighboi-s  comes  up  ;  an' 


TYPES   AND  TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  213 

it's  they  that'll  be  the  glad  neighbors  to  see  you 
safe  back  agin,  Tom.'  "  ^ 

Several  of  the  representative  heroes  of  these 
novels  have  already  made  their  appearance, 
among  them  Lady  Morgan's  young  patriot, 
O'Brien;  Maxwell's  young  military  man,  wild 
and  swaggering,  but  gentlemanly  still ;  Lever's 
hero  —  Lorrequer,  O'Malley,  or  Hinton  —  made 
after  the  pattern  of  Maxwell's ;  and  Lover's 
peasants,  Rory  O'More,  and  Handy  Andy.  Of 
the  peasant  heroes  of  the  novelists  of  the 
peasantry,  Carleton's,  gathering  up  the  distinc- 
tive traits  of  the  rest,  may  without  loss  stand  for 
them  all.  Carleton's  heroes  are  worthy  of  the 
girls  who  love  them.  They  are  strong,  hearty 
fellows,  on  good  terms  with  the  world  and  their 
surroundings.  They  have  a  store  of  manly  vir- 
tues, a  wit  ready  for  every  occasion,  and  a  humor 
that  plays  good-naturedly  with  every  one  and 
everything.  They  are  instinctively  upright  and 
honest,  with  the  pith  of  strong  sense,  and  capa- 
ble in  whatever  their  hands  find  to  do.  They 
share  with  their  mothers  and  sweethearts  the 
strong  domestic  affections  and  deep  religious 
spirit.  There  is  the  same  intense  passion  in 
1  Emigrants  of  Ahadmra.,  pp.  501-502. 


214  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

the  heroes  as  in  the  heroines ;  it  flows  full  and 
free  with  a  wonderful  depth  and  volume.  As 
lovers  they  are  a  complete  success.  Conor 
O'Donovan,  Condy  Dalton,  Bryan  M'Mahon, 
and  Shane  Fadh  are  the  best  of  them.  Conor 
might  have  served  as  the  archetype  of  them  all. 
He  and  Una  are  the  peasant  Romeo  and  Juliet 
of  the  Irish  novel.  Conor's  wooing  of  Una  is 
typical  of  the  many  scenes  of  young  love 
depicted  by  the  novelists  of  the  peasantry. 
And  Carleton  is  nowhere  greater  than  in  such 
scenes,  which,  in  the  purity  and  freshness  of 
the  sentiment,  and  in  their  tenderness,  warmth, 
and  delicacy,  perhaps  no  novelist  has  surpassed. 
The  tale  of  love  is  told  in  words  simple,  homely, 
and  direct,  with  no  suggestion  of  sentimentality 
or  convention.  The  heroes  themselves  have  a 
rude  eloquence,  impressive  often,  and  especially 
so  when  it  seeks  to  express  the  emotions  of  first 
love,  the  sense  of  awe,  the  rapture,  and  the 
kind  of  sacred  gladness  that  exalt  them.  For 
all  their  genial  qualities,  tlieir  love,  and  their 
gentleness,  these  heroes  are  not  men  to  be 
tampered  with.  They  are  lions  when  roused, 
and  capable  of  a  wrath  as  fierce  as  their  love  is 
tender. 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL    INCIDENTS  215 

Among  the  villains  of  the  novels,  the  favor- 
ite with  the  novelists  of  the  gentry  is  the 
shrewd,  cold,  calculating  man  of  business,  a 
scheming  attorney  he  may  be,  or  a  money- 
lending  agent,  or  both  in  one.  The  originals 
of  these  characters  abounded  in  the  real  life  of 
the  day.  The  peculiar  social  conditions  of 
Ireland  produced  a  plentiful  crop  of  them. 
Attorney  Quirk,  who  turns  the  last  of  the 
Rackrents  out  of  the  castle  because  he  cannot 
pay  his  debts  is  a  villain  of  this  tj^pe ;  Patrick- 
son,  Sir  Ulick  O'Shane's  man  of  business,  in 
Ormonde  who  tries*  to  trick  the  unsuspecting 
hero  out  of  his  fortune,  is  another.  Lever 
presents  a  group  of  such  villains.  They  are 
the  masters  of  the  financial  interests  of  their 
employers,  taking  advantage  of  their  distaste 
or  incapacity  for  business,  to  hurry  them  to 
ruin  by  legal  chicanery  or  extortionate  interest, 
and  to  build  their  own  fortunes  upon  the  ruins 
of  the  fortunes  of  their  patrons.  Among 
Lever's  villains  of  this  stamp  are  old  Hickman 
and  "  honest  Tom "  Gleason  of  The  Knight  of 
G-wynne^  Davenport  Dunn,  the  notorious  swin- 
dler, and  Fagan  of  Sir  Jasper  Careiv.  Many  of 
these  villains  are  not  of  a  deep  dye,  but  take 


216  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

the  color  of  villany  largely  as  the  instruments 
of  the  catastrophes  which  the  careless  and  ex- 
travagant gentry  brought  upon  themselves. 

With  the  novelists  of  the  peasantry  the  White- 
boy  of  diabolical  malignity  and  ferocious  cruelty 
often  does  duty  as  murderous  villain.  Magis- 
trates and  middlemen  of  the  Valentine  M'Clut- 
chy  variety  often  play  the  r51e  — characters,  like 
the  rascal  attorneys,  in  large  measure  the  product 
of  peculiar  social  conditions.  But  it  is  Carleton 
who  produces  villains  of  the  true  national  flavor. 
From  the  artistic  standpoint  villains  are  often 
a  failure.  Humanity  disowns  their  blackness 
and  pronounces  them  mere  abstractions  of  evil. 
It  is  Carleton's  triumph  to  have  produced 
villains,  that,  despite  black  hearts  and  dark 
deeds,  are  men,  and  as  admirable  from  the  liter- 
ary point  of  view  as  they  are  detestable  from 
the  moral.  Unhappy  surroundings,  and  their 
capacity  for  blighting  the  good  in  human  nature 
and  stimulating  the  evil,  are  brought  forward 
and  do  much  to  explain  them. 

The  Irish  peasant  nature,  witli  a  full  share  of 
the  kindly  and  genial  qualities  that  soften  and 
brigliten  the  daily  intercourse  of  life,  is  well 
known  to  possess,  at  the  other  extreme,  a  capac- 


TYPES  AND  TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  217 

ity  for  the  most  savage,  secret,  and  deliberate 
vengeance.  This  ferocious  vindictiveness  is 
the  master  trait  of  one  set  of  Carleton's  villains, 
the  blackest  characters  in  these  novels.  It  is  this 
vindictiveness  that  impels  Bartle  Flanagan  of 
Fardarouglia  to  an  atrocious  vengeance  upon 
the  miser  who  had  turned  his  parents  out  upon 
the  world  to  starve,  and  upon  the  miser's  son, 
who  is  the  accepted  suitor  of  the  girl  he  loves. 
With  deliberate  ferocity  he  bides  his  time  to 
strike,  and  finds  it  in  the  opportunity  that 
occurs  of  fixing  upon  the  miser's  son  the  guilt 
of  a  capital  crime  of  which  he  is  innocent. 
Thus  he  plans  to  glut  himself  with  a  rich 
vengeance  by  at  once  robbing  the  miser  of  the 
son  dearer  to  him  than  life,  and  ridding  himself 
of  a  hated  and  successful  rival. 

The  impulsiveness  of  the  peasant  nature, 
quick  in  rage  as  in  love,  is,  in  its  darker  aspect, 
the  distinctive  trait  of  villains  of  another  stamp. 
Hugh  O'Donnell  of  Carleton's  Lha  Dhu,  or  The 
Dark  Day  is  one  of  these.  In  a  moment  of 
rage,  swept  out  of  himself  by  a  mad  rush  of 
passion,  he  strikes  his  brother  with  a  stone  and 
kills  him.  But  the  fiery  and  scorching  remorse 
that  follows  the  fatal  act  burns  away  the  guilt 


218  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

of  the  crime,  and  leaves  the  impression  of  a 
man  victimized  by  his  passion,  rather  than 
deliberately  villanous,  more  a  villain  in  deed 
than  in  will. 

A  villain  cast  in  a  mould  different  from  that 
of  Bartle  Flanagan  or  Hugh  O'Donnell  is 
Hycy  Burke  of  The  Eynigrayits  of  Ahadarra^ 
whose  master  motive  is  an  intense,  unfeeling 
selfishness,  that  spares  nothing  that  stands 
between  him  and  his  interests  and  inclinations. 
There  is  a  dangerous  spirit  of  evil  in  the  clever 
head  and  cold  heart  of  this  handsome  and  plau- 
sible young  rascal,  who  scorns  the  mother  who 
spoils  him,  despises  the  homely  ways  of  his 
father,  plays  fast  and  loose  with  the  affections 
of  Kathleen,  is  the  malignant  hypocrite  to  his 
friends,  and  remorselessly  proceeds  to  shatter  the 
purest  happiness  of  the  generous  natures  about 
him,  when  by  so  doing  he  can  feed  a  gross  pas- 
sion, or  line  his  purse. 

In  addition  to  the  villains  that  have  been 
noticed,  there  is  in  the  novels  a  miscellaneous 
crew  of  stagey,  melodramatic  scoundrels,  from 
whom,  though  they  do  desperate  deeds,  and  in 
general  play  tlie  bad  man  with  credit,  not  a 
genuine  shudder  is  to  be  had. 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  219 

Lever  is  responsible  for  the  appearance  in 
the  Irish  novel  of  an  original  and  altogether  ex- 
traordinary set  of  personages  —  a  company  of  old 
men,  even  more  surprising  in  their  behavior  than 
his  young  swaggerers.  To  this  group  belong 
that  charming  pair  of  friends,  Count  Considine 
and  Godfred  O'Malley,  who,  though  past  three- 
score years  and  ten,  still,  with  the  zest  of  youth, 
cheat  bailiffs,  defy  creditors,  entertain  the  coun- 
try and  the  hunt,  tell  boisterous  stories,  write 
belligerent  letters,  fight  duels,  and  are  in  gen- 
eral venerable  scamps.  Of  these  old  men  good 
representatives  are  Bagenal  Daly  (the  notorious 
Beauchamp  Bagenal  was  the  original  of  the 
character)  of  The  Knight  of  Grwynne^  and  Sir 
Brooke  Fossbrooke  of  the  book  of  that  title. 
Both  are  bachelors,  of  old  stock,  who  carry  into 
later  age  the  vigor  of  youth,  and  find  in  the  world 
and  its  pleasures  an  enjoyment  as  racy  in  the 
evening  of  life  as  on  the  day  they  first  made 
their  bow  to  it.  They  have  squandered  for- 
tunes in  dissipation,  lost  them  in  speculation, 
or  put  them  at  the  disposal  of  needy  friends. 
They  have  been  everywhere,  seen  everything, 
tried  all  kinds  of  experiences.  They  play  all 
games  of  chance  and  skill.     They  are  seasoned 


220  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

sportsmen.  Enthusiastic  convivialists,  they  are 
yet  men  whom  excesses  cannot  corrupt  nor  dis- 
sipation degrade.  They  are  ready  for  cards,  the 
all-night  rouse,  and  the  hunter's  daybreak  start 
in  the  morning.  Their  manners  show  the  court- 
liness and  deference  of  a  bygone  school  of  breed- 
ing. Devoted  admirers  of  the  sex,  they  love  still 
to  pay  them  the  homage  of  admiration  and 
service.  Headstrong  and  impetuous,  they  are 
equally  ready  to  right  wrongs  or  inflict  them  at 
the  point  of  sword  or  pistol.  Finding  them- 
selves, as  the  game  of  life  is  closing,  stripped  of 
everything  but  a  name  for  singularity  and  con- 
viviality, they  yet  show  no  disposition  to  com- 
plain. They  are  losers,  but  they  have  enjoyed 
the  game  from  beginning  to  end ;  they  have 
played  fair,  and  in  good  company.  In  short, 
the  author  intends  the  reader  to  discover  in 
these  personages  men  of  fine  natures  and  great 
abilities  wasted  or  run  wild  in  eccentricity,  men 
who  have  found  no  use  for  talents,  place,  and 
wealth,  beyond  the  indulgence  of  caprice. 

The  novelists  of  the  peasantry  have  also  a  fine 
set  of  old  men  to  introduce.  While  an  Irish- 
man lives,  he  is  lively,  it  would  seem,  and  age 
cannot    dull    the    spirits    of    these    patriarchs. 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTvS  221 

Their  temper  may  be  crusty ;  never  moping  or 
splenetic.  A  call  upon  the  feelings  meets 
a  response  as  prompt  in  age  as  in  youth ;  the 
gusts  of  emotion  are  frequent  and  strong  —  the 
same  blackness  in  storms  of  sorrow,  the  same 
warmth  and  sweetness  of  affection,  the  same 
heartbeat  in  every  word  of  hospitality.  Wrath 
kindles  quickly,  humor  plays  brightly,  and  the 
passion  for  "  divilment  and  divarsion  "  remains 
unquenched  to  the  end.  These  old  men,  and 
their  women  folk  too,  in  the  lighter  aspects 
of  their  characters,  are  hit  off  happily  in  the 
words  of  the  old  woman,  the  forgotten  humorist 
quoted  in  Mr.  O'Donoghue's  Life  of  Carleton^ 
who  observed  of  herself  and  her  class,  "  Sure,  av 
we  are  poor,  at  laiste  we're  very  plaisant." 

No  characters  appear  more  frequently  in  the 
Irish  novels  than  the  faithful  retainers.  There 
is  a  whole  company  of  them  who  maintain  with 
their  masters  a  relationship,  in  many  ways  dis- 
tinctively Irish,  and  most  especially  so  by  virtue 
of  the  unfailing  tact  and  instinctive  understand- 
ing of  the  master's  feelings,  bred  of  love  and 
sympathy,  which  taught  the  servant  how  best, 
by  speech  or  silence,  presence  or  absence,  to 
render  the  most  acceptable  service.    The  first  of 


222  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

the  band  is  old  Thady,  steward  of  the  Rackrents, 
whose  heart  broke  when  Rackrent  Castle  passed 
out  of  "the  family." 

No  one  of  the  old  retainers  makes  so  strong  a 
comic  appeal  as  Corny  Delany,  servant  to  Phil 
O'Grady  of  Jack  Hinton.  He  can  hold  his  own 
with  the  comic  originals  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury novelists,  the  masters  in  that  kind.  This 
grim,  ill-conditioned  old  creature,  described  by 
his  master  as  "a  crab  tree  planted  in  a  lime 
kiln,"  earns  his  nickname  of  Cross  Corny  by 
an  ill-temper  and  crankiness  that  never  slept, 
and  assailed  friend  and  foe  alike  with  continu- 
ous showers  of  biting  gibes.  He  has  a  "bad 
luck"  to  Dublin  Castle  "for  a  riotous,  dis- 
orderly place,"  and  a  "bad  luck"  for  his  grace 
the  "lord  liftinnant,  and  the  bishops,  and  the 
jidges,  and  all  the  privy  councillors,"  who 
waste  "more  liquor  ever^^  night  than  would 
float  a  lighter,"  and  laugh,  sing,  and  carouse 
"as  if  potatoes  wasn't  two  shillings  a  stone." 
He  declares  his  young  master  a  reprobate  who 
blackguards  about  the  streets,  and  that  the  man 
who  would  go  to  him  for  good  treatment  would 
"go  to  the  devil  for  divarsion."  Ilis  master's 
guests   are   served  with  a   growl  — "  there's  a 


TYPES   AKD  TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  223 

veal  pie,  and  here's  a  cold  grouse  —  and  maybe 
you've  eat  woi'se  before  now  —  and  will  again, 
plase  God."  Corny  is  withal  a  most  pious  Cath- 
olic, and  a  devout  believer  in  ghosts  of  all  sorts, 
most  particularly  in  the  ghost  of  his  master's 
grandfather.  Corny  is  but  one  of  a  band  of 
cross-grained  domestics  whose  warm  unswerving 
devotion  masquerades  in  the  guise  of  hostility. 
The  company  of  faithful  retainers  has  young 
recruits  as  well  as  old.  The  Denis  O'Brien  of 
Maxwell's  Captain  Blalce  and  the  Mickey  Free 
of  Charles  OMalley  are  good  representatives. 
Denis,  fosterer  or  foster-brother  of  Major  Blake, 
is  the  major's  body-servant,  and,  in  character, 
much  the  same  sort  of  fellow  as  he  of  the  song 
sung  by  Denis  in  answer  to  an  impertinent  query 
as  to  his  birthplace  :  — 

"  I  courted  in  Cavan,  play'd  cards  in  Ardee, 
Kiss'd  the  maids  in  Dromore,  and  broke  glass  in  Tralee  ; 
I  married  in  Sligo,  got  drunk  at  Arboe, 
And  what's  that  to  any  one,  whether  or  no."^ 

Denis,  averse  to  cool  argument,  ready  with  a 
blow,  with  an  inveterate   brogue  and  an  inex- 
tinguishable thirst,  was  a  bit  of  a  rogue  in  most 
things,  yet   always   true  to  his  master,  whose 
1  Captain  Blake,  p.  36. 


2-24  IRISH   LIFE   I^  IRISH  FICTION 

wishes,  right  or  wrong,  were  law.  A  bold  heart, 
a  stout  arm  and  a  ready  wit  made  him  a  re- 
sourceful and  efficient  ally  to  the  adventurous 
major.  Mickey  Free,  a  favorite  character  with 
Lever's  readers,  is  of  the  same  type,  but  dis- 
played in  contact  with  a  greater  variety  of 
incident  and  in  a  fuller  stream  of  drollery. 
Mickey,  like  Denis,  is  more  than  half  a  rogue, 
but  with  one  fixed  principle  —  fidelity  to  Master 
Charles. 

A  type  of  Irishman  with  which  all  the  world 
is  familiar  is  the  stage  Irishman,  the  conventional 
creature  of  the  music  hall,  the  farce,  and  the 
melodrama.  He  is  commonly  seen  in  one  of 
three  guises.  He  is  the  blundering  buffoon, 
half  fool,  half  wit ;  the  capering  Irishman,  who 
speaks  only  in  bulls  and  jokes,  and  is  a  jewel 
at  a  li^  or  at  blame vincr  the  Miss  Judies.  In 
another  guise  he  is  the  wild  Irishman  of  flaming 
face  and  scarlet  whiskers,  who,  when  "  the  drop 
is  in,"  enters  with  a  Celtic  screech  and  the  ex- 
hilarating whack  of  the  shillelagh  —  a  paragon 
for  crackincr  heads  at  fair  or  market.     Or  cicrain 

o  o 

he  is  the  gentlemanly  savage  who  lives  but  to 
quarrel,  to  shoot,  and  be  shot  at.  This  conven- 
tional  figure,   now  preposterously  foolish   and 


i 


TYPES  AND  TYPICAL  INCIDENTS  226 

funny,  now  a  screeching  wild  man,  now  a  fire- 
eater,  has  done  duty  as  the  typical  Irishman  in 
English  literature  up  to  the  opening  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  when  the  Irish  novel  was  bom. 
The  stage  Irishman,  in  one  form  or  another,  is 
continually  approached  by  the  Irish  novelists, 
and  often  completely  embodied.  Handy  Andy 
is  a  perfect  buffoon  stage  Irishman.  And  the 
O'Leary  whom  Harry  Lorrequer  meets  in  the 
fashionable  gambling-house  in  Paris,  playing 
roulette,  is  a  perfect  wild  Irishman.  The  game 
goes  against  him,  and  he  is  rapidly  losing  his 
temper.  At  length,  in  a  rage,  he  upsets  the 
croupier,  chair  and  all,  sends  the  stakes  flying 
over  the  room,  leaps  upon  the  table,  and, 
swinging  a  stout  blackthorn,  scatters  the  wax- 
lights  on  all  sides,  shatters  the  candelabra,  and 
accompanies  the  exploit  with  a  series  of  savage 
cries. 

The  stage  Irishman  is  an  extravagant  distor- 
tion of  a  few  national  traits  that  are  easily 
seized,  and  can  be  managed  with  a  certain  kind 
of  comic  effect  by  the  most  hea\T-handed 
humorist.  Caricature  and  burlesque  of  a 
national  character  are,  of  course,  legitimate 
forms   of   amusement.     All   nations   burlesque 


226  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

themselves  and  their  neighbors.  But  the  vio- 
lent aversion  Irishmen  have  manifested  of  late 
against  the  stage  Irishman  is  not  unnatural. 
For  centuries  this  figure  has  held  the  stage 
and  done  duty  for  the  complete  man.  Irish- 
men are  disgusted  with  the  old  familiar  clown 
and  savage.  They  will  own  no  relationship 
with  him,  would  banish  him  from  the  boards, 
and  see  in  his  stead  characters  that  embody 
what  they  love  and  honor  in  the  Irish  nature. 
On  this  side  of  the  water  disapproval  of  the 
stage  Irishman  has  recently  expressed  itself  in 
showers  of  eggs  and  storms  of  hisses  —  a  form 
of  protest  that  oddly  combines  rowdyism  and 
solicitude  for  the  national  character. 

The  squireen  is  a  social  type  peculiarly  Irish. 
The  squireens  were  a  mongrel  class  with  the 
manners  and  education  of  small  farmers  and 
tlie  pretensions  of  gentlemen.  They  were  men 
without  an  idea  beyond  a  dog,  a  gun,  a  horse, 
and  the  pleasures  of  the  table ;  an  arrogant, 
ostentatious  set,  who  spent  their  time  at  fairs, 
races,  and  cock-fights,  or  gambUng,  drinking, 
and  fighting  duels.  Parading  everywhere  their 
contempt  for  honest  labor,  they  gave  a  tone  of 
recklessness    and   deviltry  to    every  society  in 


TYPES   AND  TYPICAL  INCIDENTS  227 

which  they  moved.  From  this  class,  many  of 
the  small  fry  of  Government  officers  were 
selected.  The  magistracy  throughout  the  coun- 
try was  largely  in  their  hands.  Ireland  was 
practically  without  a  sober,  industrious  middle 
class  like  that  of  England,  and  it  was  these 
half  gentry,  the  squireens,  who,  destitute  of 
industrial  virtues  and  concentrating  in  them- 
selves the  distinctive  vices  of  the  Irish  char- 
acter, most  nearly  corresponded  to  it.  It  was 
they  who,  more  than  any  other  class,  sustained 
the  race  of  extravagance  that  ran  through  all 
ranks.  They  were  often  middlemen,  the  agra- 
rian tyrants  who  ground  the  peasantry  to 
powder.  Hycy  Burke  in  Carleton's  Emigrants^ 
Valentine  M'Clutchy's  son,  and  Purcell  of  The 
Tithe  Proctor^  are  among  the  representatives  of 
the  class  in  the  novels. 

Many  types  must  necessarily  remain  un- 
mentioned,  but  a  few  may  still  be  noticed. 
The  wild  race  of  Irish  Jehus  —  "the  fry  of 
rakehell  horse  boys,"  Spenser  calls  them  — 
who  early  won  that  distinction  as  wits  and 
reckless  drivers  which  they  have  maintained 
to  the  present  day,  should  not  be  forgotten. 
The  old   hags  of   the  bony  and    ragged  sister- 


228  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

hood  of  Meg  Merrilies,  who  curse  and  prophesy 
in  an  impressively  picturesque  fashion,  are 
also  memorable.  Troops  of  eloquent  and  vol- 
uble beggars,  the  fringe  of  every  society  that  is 
presented  in  the  novels,  itinerant  pipers  and 
fiddlers,  and  the  humble  descendants  of  the  old 
senachies,  are  also  characteristic  and  familiar 
figures. 

Allusion  has  more  than  once  been  made  to 
the  prevalence  of  lawlessness  in  Irish  life. 
The  gentry  despised  the  law,  and  the  peasantry 
hated  it.  This  was  in  part  due  to  the  injustice 
of  the  penal  code  itself;  in  part  to  the  lax 
administration  of  the  code,  for  the  decent  men 
of  the  class  that  made  the  offensive  laws,  re- 
volted when  it  came  to  putting  them  into  prac- 
tical effect.  Of  this  prevalence  of  lawlessness, 
of  the  contempt  for  the  laws  on  the  one  side, 
and  hatred  of  them  on  the  other,  the  Irish 
novels  give  copious  illustration.  Some  phases 
of  this  lawlessness  have  already  been  noticed 
—  the  activity  of  the  smugglers,  the  meddling 
of  the  gentry  in  the  "  running  trade,"  and 
the  operations  of  the  secret  societies.  Another 
phase  Avas  the  ceaseless  war  of  debtors  and 
creditors.      Incidents  serious  and  comic  grow- 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  229 

ing  out  of  this  shifty  conflict  are  so  much  a 
part  of  the  texture  of  these  stories  that  one  can 
scarcely  conceive  of  their  holding  together  with- 
out them. 

As  an  instance  of  the  ingenuity  of  debtors  in 
eluding  their  creditors,  may  be  cited  the  orig- 
inal stratagem  by  which  Godfrey  O'Malley, 
the  uncle  of  Charles  O'Malley,  escaped  from  a 
besieging  host  of  Dublin  tradesmen  and  officers 
of  the  law.  O'Malley  is  cornered,  and  bailiffs 
and  process-servers  are  employing  all  the  skill 
of  their  craft  to  prevent  his  escape  from  the 
city,  and  land  him  a  captive  at  last  in  His 
Majesty's  jail.  O'Malley  calls  a  council  of  his 
friends.  An  expedient  is  suggested.  Notices 
of  O'Malley's  death  are  to  be  put  in  the  Dublin 
papers ;  in  due  course  he  is  to  be  carried  from 
the  city  in  a  coffin,  as  if  for  burial  upon  his 
estate  in  the  west.  The  ruse  succeeds ;  he 
arrives  in  the  west;  and  from  the  top  of  the 
hearse  at  once  commences  a  canvass  for  re- 
election as  a  member  of  Parliament,  a  seat  in 
which  will  secure  him  immunity  from  prosecu- 
tion for  debt  during  his  term.  The  real  secret 
of  O'jMalley's  escape  had  gone  before  him. 
Nothing  was  sufficiently  flattering  to  mark  the 


230  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

approbation  of  the  peasantry  for  the  man  who 
had  duped  all  the  sheriffs  and  bailiffs  in  Dublin. 
As,  amid  blazing  bonfires  and  shouts  of  joy,  he 
passed  on  toward  home,  the  happy  tenantry 
showered  upon  him  encomiums  like  these  : 
"  An'  it's  little  O'Malley  cares  for  the  law  — • 
bad  luck  to  it!  it's  himself  can  laugh  at  judge 
and  jury.  Arrest  him!  —  na  bocklish  —  catch 
a  weazel  asleep,"  and  so  forth. 

The  lives  of  bailiffs  in  their  efforts  to  carry 
out  the  decrees  of  the  law  are  one  long  chapter 
of  distressing  misadventures.  An  enterprising 
bailiff  had  to  expect  experiences  like  that  of  the 
unhappy  man  in  The  Collegians^  who  attempted 
the  arrest  of  Mr.  Conolly,  a  gentleman  who 
owed  more  than  he  cared  to  pay.  Mr.  Conolly 
himself  relates  the  incident :  — 

"  In  the  morning,  I  stepped  out  to  the  stable 
to  see  how  my  horse  had  been  made  up  in  the 
night,  when  I  felt  a  tap  on  the  shoulder  —  just 
like  that  —  do  you  feel  it  at  all  electrical  ?  — 
[he  touched  Kyrle's  shoulder]  — /  do,  always. 
I  turned,  and  saw  a  fellow  in  a  brown  coat, 
with  a  piece  of  paper  in  his  hand.  I  was  com- 
pelled to  accept  his  invitation,  so  I  requested 
that  he  would  step  into  the  inn,  while  I  was 
taking  a  little  breakfast.  While  I  was  doing 
HO,  and  while  he  was  sitting  at  the  other  side  of 


TYPES   AXD   TYriCAL    INCIDENTS  231 

the  fire,  in  walked  Pat  Falvey,  Mrs.  Chute's 
footman,  with  his  mistress's  compliments,  to 
thank  me  for  a  present  of  baking-a})ples  I  had 
sent  her.  I  winked  at  Pat,  and  looked  at  the 
bailiff.  'Pat,'  says  I,  'tell  your  mistress  not  to 
mention  it;  and  Pat,'  says  I,  dropping  to  a 
whisper,  '  Pm  a  prisoner.'  '  Very  well,  sir,'  says 
Pat  aloud,  and  bowing,  as  if  I  had  given  him 
some  messao-e.  He  left  the  room,  and  in  ten 
minutes  I  had  the  whole  parish  about  the  win- 
dows. They  came  in,  they  called  for  the  bailiff, 
they  seized  him,  and  beat  him,  until  they  didn't 
leave  him  worth  looking  at.  Dooley.  the  nailer, 
caught  his  arm,  and  O'Reilly,  the  blacksmith, 
took  him  by  the  leg,  and  another  by  the  hair, 
and  another  by  the  throat :  and  such  a  show  as 
they  made  of  him  before  five  minutes,  I  never 
contemplated.  But  here  was  the  beauty  of  it. 
I  knew  the  law,  so  I  opposed  the  \Ahole  proceed- 
ing. '  No  rescue,'  says  I ;  'I  am  his  prisoner, 
gentlemen,  and  I  will  not  be  rescued  :  so  don't 
beat  the  man  I  —  don't  toss  him  in  a  blanket !  — 
don't  drag  him  in  the  puddle  !  —  don't  plunge 
him  into  the  horsepond,  I  entreat  you ! '  By 
some  fatality,  my  intentions  were  wholly  miscon- 
ceived, and  they  performed  exactly  the  things 
that  I  warned  them  to  avoid.'"  ^ 

The  peasants  liked  the  bailiffs  no  better  than 
did  the  gentry.    In  Carleton's  Tuhher  Berg  a  bail- 
iff visits  a  poor  widow  to  demand  the  rent.      She 
1  The  Collegians,  pp.  2.30-231. 


232  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

has  no  money,  and  he  threatens  to  drive  off  her 
two  cows  as  pa}  ment.  The  widow  hurries  to  a 
neighbor  to  borrow  money,  if  she  can,  to  satisfy 
his  demands.  In  her  absence  the  children  try 
another  way  to  rid  themselves  of  the  intruder. 
The  instinctive  aversion  of  the  peasant  to  the 
bailiff  expresses  itself  in  a  spontaneous  attack 
made  upon  him  by  the  whole  family.  The  eldest 
son  leads  the  attack,  seeking  by  kicks  and  cuffs 
to  reduce  him  to  a  state  of  subjection.  In  this 
the  younger  children  assist,  prodding  and  batter- 
ing him  with  tongs,  sticks,  and  potato-mashers. 
An  extract  from  the  correspondence  of  a 
gentleman  who  has  been  quoted  before,  Manns 
Blake,  of  Maxwell's  Captain  Blahe^  will  further 
illustrate  the  attitude  of  the  gentry  toward  the 
law  and  its  officers.  It  also  reflects  the  distaste 
of  military  men  for  interfering  in  the  little  dif- 
ferences between  private  gentlemen  and  the 
law.  There  is  trouble  between  iNIanus  Blake, 
of  Blake  Castle,  County  Galway,  and  ^Nlr. 
Clancy,    the   coroner :  — 

"Castle   Blake,   April  23d. 

"  Dear  Jack,  —  I  have  so  much  to  tell  you, 
that  I  don't  know  which  end  to  begin  with. 
.   .  .     But  I  had  better  tell  you  of  my  affair 


TYPES   AND  TYPICAL  INCIDENTS  233 

with  the  coroner.  It  was  last  Monday  week  — 
Father  Walsh  was  reading  mass  to  your  mother 
and  the  maids ;  and  I  was  looking  at  Tony 
washing  Kate  Karney's  eyes  with  extract  of 
goulard  —  she  is  a  most  unlucky  mare,  for  only 
the  week  before  she  was  all  but  drowned  in  a 
marl-hole.  —  Well,  down  ran  the  gate-keeper's 
wdfe,  as  if  the  devil  was  at  her  heels,  to  say  that 
the  coroner  was  coming,  and  a  whole  regiment 
along  with  him.  Of  course  we  shut  the  doors ; 
and  in  a  few  minutes  the  soldiers  appeared  at 
the  head  of  the  avenue,  and  Clancy,  the  thief 
of  the  world,  riding  before  them  on  the  grey 
pony.  Sibby  Philbin,  the  poor  creature,  thought 
all  the  army  in  the  province  was  there ;  though 
after  all  there  was  only  the  light  company  of 
the  87th,  commanded  by  a  Captain  Hamilton,  a 
bosom  friend  of  j^our  cousin  John.  The  soldiers 
came  fair  and  easy  down  the  road ;  your  mother 
and  the  priest  remained  at  prayers,  as  they 
ought  to  do ;  and  I  loaded  the  old  double  with 
a  handful  of  swan-drops,  and  sat  down  at  the 
lobby  window,  to  see  how  things  would  get  on. 

"  When  the  redcoats  came  to  the  carriage 
sweep.  Captain  Hamilton  halted  the  com- 
pany, and  ordered  arms.  Clancy  dismounted, 
pulled  out  an  ugly  bit  of  parchment,  walked 
up  the  steps  as  if  the  house  was  his  own,  and 
mighty  stiff  he  was  as  he  gave  a  thundering 
knock  at  the  door,  that  set  all  the  dogs  a-barking. 

"  '  Arrah,  what  do  you  want  ?  '  says  I  from  the 
window,  'that  you  knock  like  a  blacksmith?' 
'  I  want  admission,'  says  he. 


234  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IKISH  FICTION 

" '  I'm  greatly  afraid  you're  not  likely  to  get 
it,'  replied  I.  '  You  had  better  give  it  fair  and 
peaceably,'  says  he. 

" '  You're  safer  where  you  are,'  says  I,  '  and 
on  the  right  side  to  run  away.'  *I'll  smash 
the  door  in  a  jiffey,'  said  he. 

" '  Then,  upon  my  conscience,  you'll  never 
smash  another,'  says  I;  and  I  lifted  the  gun 
quietly,  and  opened  both  pans  to  see  that  the 
primings  were  good.  Clancy  stepped  back,  the 
soldiers  laughed  heartily,  for  the  tenants  had 
got  the  alarm,  and  came  hopping  in  dozens  over 
the  park  walls  ;  and  in  less  than  no  time,  there 
they  were  like  a  swarm  of  bees,  and  every  man 
with  a  shillelagh  in  his  fist,  and  the  girls  with 
their  aprons  full  of  paving-stones. 

"  Well,  Clancy  got  mortally  afraid.  '  I  hold 
you,  sir,'  says  he  to  Captain  Hamilton, '  account- 
able for  my  safety  —  and  I  command  you  to 
break  in  the  door.'  —  *  I'd  see  you  d — d  first,' 
replied  the  captain  ;  '  I  came  here  to  protect 
you,  certainly  ;  but  do  you  think,  you  scoundrel, 
that  I  am  obliged  to  commit  a  burglary  ? ' 

"'I  want  you  to  do  your  duty,'  says  the 
coroner.  — '  And  that  I  will, '  says  the  cap- 
tain. '  I'll  bring  you  safe  home  if  you  please 
it ;  but  do  you  suppose  that  I  will  turn  house- 
breaker?' 

"  The  tenants  gave  a  cheer  —  the  soldiers 
a  laugh  —  and  Clancy  ran  into  the  ranks  for 
protection."  ^ 

1  Maxwell's  Captain  BlaTce^  pp.  439-444. 


TYPES  AND  TYPICAL  INCIDENTS  235 

Abduction  was  a  form  of  lawlessness  very 
common  in  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  early 
part  of  the  nineteenth,  though  the  memory  of 
it  alone  survives  at  present.  Abductions  are 
stock  incidents  in  the  novels.  The  father 
of  the  hero  of  Maxwell's  Captain  Blake 
takes  off  his  lady  from  her  father's  house 
against  his  will.  The  father  of  the  hero  of 
Hector  O'Halloran  carries  off  his  wife  from  a 
nunnery.  The  sister  of  Handy  Andy  only 
escapes  abduction  at  the  hands  of  a  set  of 
ruffians  by  Andy's  ruse  of  disguising  himself  as 
a  woman  and  getting  himself  taken  off  in  her 
stead.  Shane  Fadh  abducts  the  girl  he  makes 
his  wife  with  her  own  consent,  and  had  himself 
been  the  means  of  putting  to  rout  the  party  of 
a  rejected  suitor  of  his  sweetheart's  who  came 
to  abduct  her  against  her  will. 

No  form  of  lawlessness  had  a  stronger  hold 
on  the  popular  taste  than  duelling.  Duels 
were  fought  not  merely  in  passion,  to  wipe  out 
an  insult  or  an  offence  ;  they  were  often  a  delib- 
erately chosen  substitute  for  the  lawsuit.  The 
trigger-process  was  considered  quicker  and  more 
genteel  than  the  legal.  For  example,  two 
squires  in  Carleton's  Battle  of  the  Factions^  with 


236  IRISH  LITE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 

estates  adjoining,  differ  on  a  question  of  boun- 
daries. Disdaining  to  go  to  law  over  the  matter, 
a  duel  is  arranged :  — 

"  The  two  squires  then  fought  a  challenge 
upon  the  head  of  it,  and,  what  was  more  singu- 
lar, upon  the  disputed  spot  itself ;  the  one  stand- 
ing on  their  side,  the  other  on  ours ;  for  it  was 
just  tivelve  paces  every  way.  Their  friend  was 
a  small,  light  man,  with  legs  like  drumsticks; 
the  other  was  a  large,  able-bodied  gentleman, 
with  a  red  face  and  hooked  nose.  They 
exchanged  two  shots,  one  only  of  which  —  the 
second  —  took  effect.  It  pastured  upon  their 
landlord's  spindle  leg,  on  which  he  held  it  out, 
exclaiming,  that  while  he  lived  he  would  never 
fight  another  challenge  with  his  antagonist, 
'  because,'  said  he,  holding  out  his  own  spindle 
shank,  'the  man  who  could  hit  that  could  hit 
any  tiling  J  "  ^ 

Most  of  the  duels  in  the  novels  are  the 
result  of  a  hot  word  dropped  by  a  gentleman 
"  disguised  "  in  drink  and  caught  up  by  another 
gentleman  in  the  same  condition.  Dozens  of 
duels  came  about  as  did  that  fouglit  by  Hardress 
Cregan,  the  hero  of  (Jriffin's  The  Collegians. 
Hardress  Cregan,  his  fatlier,  and  some  friends, 
are  spending  a  convivial  evening  together. 
Hardress  proposes  the  health  of  an  absent  com- 

^  Traits  and  ,Ston<'s,  Vol.  II,  p.  <!. 


TYPES  AXD  TYPIC.NX  INCIDENTS  237 

panion,  Daly.  One  of  his  father's  friends 
declares  Daly  an  impertinent  puppy  and 
declines  the  toast.  Hardress,  heated  by  the 
evening's  carouse,  replies  by  discharging  the 
contents  of  his  wine-glass  in  the  face  of 
the  offender.  Nothing  short  of  an  exchange 
of  shots  can  wipe  out  the  insult.  They  agree 
to  fight  it  out  then  and  there.  Hardress  chooses 
one  of  the  party  for  a  second ;  and  his  father  is 
requested  to  act  in  that  capacity  for  his  oppo- 
nent. The  principals  are  to  take  their  places 
in  opposite  corners  of  the  dining  room,  to 
approach  step  by  step,  and  fire  at  pleasure. 
Hardress  fires  first,  and  misses.  His  opponent 
advances  until  the  pistol  muzzle  touches  the 
young  man's  brow.  When  the  latter  shows  no 
fear,  his  opponent  lowers  his  weapon  and  mag- 
nanimously waives  his  right  to  blow  out  his 
young  friend's  brains.  This  closes  the  incident. 
They  shake  hands ;  all  close  round  the  punch- 
bowl again  ;  and  harmony  reigns  once  more. 

An  incident  growing  out  of  this  occurrence 
indicates  the  recognized  place  of  the  duel  in 
the  routine  of  Irish  life.  The  servants  in  the 
kitchen  have  just  heard  the  pistol-shot  in  the 
dining  room.     The  cook  is  speaking :  — 


238  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

"  *  Run  in  to  the  gentlemen,  Mike,  eroo,'  she 
exclaimed,  without  even  laying  aside  the  candle, 
which  she  was  paring  with  a  knife,  in  order  to 
make  it  fit  the  socket  more  exactly.  '  I  lay  my 
life  the  gentlemen  are  fighting  ^jeivel.^ 

"  'It  can't  be  a.  jewel,'  said  Mike,  the  servant- 
boy,  who  was  courting  slumber  in  a  low  chair 
before  the  blazing  fire.  '  It  can't  be  a  jewels 
when  there  was  only  one  shot.' 

"'But  it  isn't  far  from  'em,  I'll  be  bail,  till 
they'll  fire  another  if  they  do  not  be  hindered  ; 
for  'tis  shot  for  shot  with  'em.     Run  in,  eroo.' 

"The  servant-boy  stretched  his  limbs  out 
lazily,  and  rubbed  his  eyes.  '  Well,'  said  he, 
'  fair  play  all  the  world  over.  If  one  fired,  you 
wouldn't  have  the  other  put  up  with  it,  without 
havin'  his  fair  revinge?' 

" '  But  maybe  one  of  'em  is  kilt  already ! '  ob- 
served Nancy. 

"  '  E'then,  d'ye  hear  this  ?  Sure  you  know 
well,  that  if  there  was  anybody  shot,  the  master 
would  ring  the  bell.' 

"This  observation  was  conclusive.  Old  Nancy 
proceeded  with  her  gloomy  toil  in  silence,  and 
the  persuasive  Mike,  letting  his  head  hang 
back  from  his  shoulders,  and  crossing  his  hands 
upon  his  lap,  slept  soundly  on,  undisturbed  by 
any  idle  conjecture  on  the  cause  of  the  noise 
which  they  had  heard."  ^ 

A  very  prevalent  form  of  lawlessness  was  the 

illicit  distillation  of  wliiskey,  and  the  running 

iGriffiu's  21ie  Collegians,  p.  131. 


TYPES  AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  239 

of  unlicensed  whiskey  shops  all  over  the  coun- 
try. These  shebeen  shops,  as  they  were  called, 
were  everywhere  centres  of  demoralization,  and 
were  considered  to  be  one  of  the  most  powerful 
of  all  the  influences  that  were  sapping  the  morals 
of  the  nation.  The  peasants  took  to  the  illicit 
distillation  for  different  reasons.  The  profits, 
barring  contingent  losses,  were  large.  Adven- 
turous spirits  liked  to  defy  the  law,  and  war 
with  gangers,  excisemen,  and  revenue  officers. 
Not  the  least  potent  incitement  to  the  traffic  was 
the  enthusiastic  devotion  to  the  national  drink. 
The  public  at  large,  too,  found  the  mountain- 
dew  vastly  superior  in  flavor  to  the  liquor  that 
had  been  sounded  by  the  ganger's  rod.  To  distil 
whiskey  after  a  fashion  required  no  great  skill, 
though  the  best  results  could  only  be  obtained  by 
professors  of  the  art  who  combined  talent  and 
experience.  This  illicitly  distilled  whiskey  was 
called  by  the  affectionate  diminutive,  "  poteen." 
The  demoralizing  effects  of  the  distiller's  trade 
become  clear  from  the  pictures  of  the  life  of  the 
practitioners  of  it  given  in  the  novels.  The  best 
of  the  pictures  of  the  Irish  moonshiners  is  in 
Carleton's  Emigrants  of  Ahadarra.  Parts  of  the 
action  of  this  story  are  laid  in  a  cavern  used  as 


240  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

a  still-house.  The  mysteries  of  the  trade  are 
explained  —  still,  head,  and  worm,  and  the  pro- 
cess of  distillation  from  the  manipulation  of 
the  malt  to  the  running  of  the  warm  stream  of 
perfect  liquor  from  the  eye  of  the  still.  The 
moonshiner  himself  and  his  womankind  become 
old  acquaintances  —  a  hard,  lawless  lot  they  ap- 
pear. Patrons  of  the  still  and  visitors  come  and 
go  —  now  the  squireen,  it  may  be,  whose  money 
backs  the  enterprise ;  now  a  party  of  country- 
men to  purchase  a  keg  for  a  wedding ;  now  a 
group  of  rustic  hard-goers  sleeping  off  the  effects 
of  over-stimulation  in  a  corner ;  or  perhaps  the 
shebeen-house  man  makes  his  appearance  to 
negotiate  for  his  stock ;  or  a  straggler  to  beg  a 
bottle  or  a  drink  on  trust.  Perhaps  on  another 
occasion  the  hedge-schoolmaster,  an  honored 
guest,  visits  the  still-cavern  and  keeps  it  ringing 
with  the  laughter  that  answers  his  jests.  With 
his  naturally  frisky  wits  stimulated  to  the  last 
degree  by  quantities  of  the  native  in  its  pristine 
purity  and  strength,  he  is  haranguing  a  half- 
drunken,  but  wholly  appreciative  audience  with 
bursts  of  drollery  and  sallies  of  the  wildest  fun, 
in  which  a  homely  mother-wit  quaintly  mingles 
with  mock  heroics,  Vergilian  and  Iloratian  quo- 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  241 

tations,  and  miscellaneous  pedantries  in  the  true 
hedge-schoolmaster  vein. 

The  ganger,  of  course,  was  the  arch-enemy  of 
all  this  illicit  business,  and  the  gauger  outwitted 
has  very  frequently  a  part  to  play  upon  the 
stage  of  these  novels.  In  the  popular  mind 
the  gauger  was  the  embodiment  of  all  that  was 
hateful  and  villanous,  a  malignant  being  whose 
mission  was  to  war  with  human  happiness 
at  large.  He  was  the  still-hound  who  relent- 
lessly tracked  out  and  dried  up  at  their  sources 
the  streams  of  poteen  that  flowed  so  gratefully 
from  tlieir  mountain  springs. 

Carleton's  The  Squanders  of  Castle  Squander 
contains  one  of  the  many  amusing  incidents 
that  illustrate  the  ganger's  fortunes.  A  fes- 
tive squire  is  entertaining  a  jolly  company  at 
dinner.  A  servant  whispers  that  the  gauger, 
with  soldiers  at  his  back,  is  without.  The 
visitation  is  unseasonable.  Guests  are  present ; 
and,  worse  yet,  three  fresh  kegs  of  mountain- 
dew  stand  in  a  row  by  the  dining-room  wall. 
The  squire  consults  vnih.  his  huntsman,  a  man 
of  expedients.  The  huntsman  is  reassuring; 
bids  him  bring  the  gauger  in  to  join  the  com- 
pany for  a  wliile,  and  all  will  be  well.     The 


242  IRISH  LIFE  IN  IRISH  FICTION 

advice  is  followed.  The  gauger  is  warmly 
greeted,  brought  in  to  dinner,  and  urged  to 
let  his  business  stand  over  to  the  end  of  the 
meal.  Meanwhile  the  huntsman  and  a  corps  of 
assistants  repair  to  the  cellar.  Holes  are  bored 
through  the  floor  under  the  kegs,  and  through 
the  bottoms  of  the  kegs  themselves.  The  pre- 
cious liquor  is  then  drawn  off  in  small  vessels  and 
hidden  about  the  grounds.  Dinner  over,  the 
gauger  proceeds  to  inspect  the  kegs.  To  his 
surprise  and  chagrin  they  prove  empty.  The 
crestfallen  officer  departs,  and  the  country-side  is 
the  richer  by  a  joke  on  the  common  enemy. 

Gangers  were  not  all  as  inconsiderate  as  he  who 
interrupted  the  festivities  at  Castle  Squander. 
The  country  gentleman  and  the  gauger  were 
often  hand  and  glove.  A  guest  at  the  house  of 
a  Mayo  gentleman  (the  incident  is  from  Wild 
Sports  of  the  West}  tells  of  a  case  in  point. 
Knowing  his  host's  cellars  to  be  well  stocked 
with  poteen,  he  is  alarmed  one  morning  at  the 
sight  of  a  score  of  revenue  police  drawn  up 
before  the  door,  and  anxiously  consults  his  host's 
old  butler :  — 

" '  John,'  said  I,  in  a  masonic  whisper,  '  are 
we    safe  ? '— '  Safe  I    from   what.  Sir?'  — 'The 


TYPES  AND  TYPICAL  INCIDENTS  243 

gauger.'  —  '  Lord,  Sir  !  he  dines  with  us.'  —  *  But 
—  but  is  there  any  stuff  about  the  house  ?  '  — 
'  Any !  God  alone  can  tell  how  much  there  is 
above  and  under.' — '  If  anybody  told  the  ganger, 
John  — '  —  '  They  would  only  tell  him  what  he 
knows  already.  The  gauger  I  —  Lord  bless  you, 
Sir,  he  never  comes  or  goes  without  leaving  a  keg 
or  two  behind  him.  If  the  master  and  he  did  not 
pull  well  together,  what  the  devil  business  would 
we  have  here  ?  Don't  mind.  Sir  ;  we  know  what 
we  are  about  :  ^  Tig  gum  Tigue  Thigien .' '  "  ^ 

In  Ireland,  where  race  and  religious  antago- 
nisms coincided,  and  where  privilege  depended 
upon  creed,  the  religious  question  had  great  prom- 
inence. The  novels  naturally  reflect  it.  Priests 
and  friars,  the  clergy  of  the  Established  Church, 
and  dissenting  parsons  are  recurring  types. 

With  respect  to  their  training  the  priests  are 
of  two  classes,  the  first  made  up  of  those  who,  at 
a  time  when  Irish  Catholics  could  get  no  educa- 
tion, or  later  from  choice,  were  prepared  in  the 
seminaries  of  France  and  Spain,  and  the  second 
of  those  who  were  educated  at  home  in  the 
hedge-schools,  at  Maynooth,  or  elsewhere.  This 
educational  stamp  dividing  the  two  classes  is 
always  clearly  discernible. 

1  An  Irish  proverb —  "  Tim  understands  Teddy." 

2  Wild  Spoits  of  the  West,  p.  27. 


244  IRISH  LIFE  IN  IRISH  TICTION 

In  character  and  manners  the  priests  ranged 
all  the  way  from  the  type  of  elegant  French 
ecclesiastic,  polished  out  of  all  resemblance  to  his 
Irish  brethren,  of  whom  the  Abb^  O' Flaherty 
of  Lady  Morgan's  O'Briens  and  0^ Flahertys 
is  a  representative,  to  the  slovenly,  home-bred 
hedge-priests  careless  of  church  duties,  whom 
Bishop  Doyle  did  so  much  to  reform  into  ways 
proper  to  the  dignity  of  their  calling. 

Many  of  the  priests  who  appear  in  the  novels 
are  boisterous  convivialists.  Such  is  the  Father 
Malachi  Brennan  of  Harry  Lorreqiier.  He  is 
introduced  presiding  at  a  supper  in  his  own 
house,  where,  as  the  punch  goes  round,  the  fun 
grows  fast  and  furious,  to  change  later  into  a 
fighting  humor  that  turns  the  festivity  into 
a  melee,  in  which  the  floor  is  covered  with  strug- 
gling combatants,  and  the  air  full  of  flying 
missiles.  The  priest  is  the  soul  of  the  enter- 
tainment, singing  drinking  songs,  and  regaling 
the  company  with  stories,  among  others  one  that 
turns  upon  the  striking  resemblance  between  the 
gossoons  that  swarm  from  the  neighboring  cabins 
and  the  curate  who  does  the  honors  at  the  far 
end  of  the  table. 

If  the  reader  will  believe  the  officer  of  the 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  246 

North  Cork,  who  in  Harry  Lorrequer  tells  a 
story  of  life  in  the  neighborhood  of  ^laynooth, 
the  faculty  of  that  seminary  had  its  share  of 
priests  of  the  same  sort  —  tipplers  and  card- 
playei-s  :  — 

"  Many  of  the  professoi's  were  good  fellows 
that  liked  grog  fully  as  well  as  Greek,  and 
understood  short  whist,  and  five-and-ten  quite 
as  intimately  as  they  knew  the  Vulgate  or  the 
Confessions  of  St.  Augustine.  They  made  no 
ostentatious  display  of  their  pious  zeal,  but 
whenever  they  were  not  fasting  or  praying,  or 
something  of  that  kind,  they  were  always  pleas- 
ant and  agreeable ;  and,  to  do  them  justice, 
never  refused  by  any  chance  an  invitation  to 
dinner  —  no  matter  at  what  inconvenience." 

Father  Jos  of  Miss  Edgeworth's  Ormond 
is  a  similar  person.  He  spent  his  evenings 
with  King  Corny  over  pipes,  punch,  and  cards, 
and  manifested  his  religious  zeal  by  a  hatred  of 
the  privileged  heretics,  and  a  declared  convic- 
tion of  the  unhappy  state  that  awaits  them  in 
the  hereafter. 

Maxwell's  priests  are  of  the  same  convivial 
t5rpe.  Father  Andrew,  of  Wild  Sports  of  the 
West,  is  the  bottle-companion  of  the  sportsmen 
who  after  a  hard  day's  hunting  put  in  a  hard 
night's  drinking.     No  coquetry  was  necessary 


246  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

to  persuade  him  to  fill  his  glass,  no  remon- 
strances touching  "heel-taps  and  skylights." 
Manus  Blake  in  Captain  Blake  finds  no  higher 
praise  for  the  parish  priest  than  that  he  is  a 
man  you  could  drink  with  in  the  dark. 

Sporting  priests  with  a  strong  taste  for  the 
turf  and  the  hunt  also  appear.  There  was  no 
inconsiderable  number  of  these  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  and  opening  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. The  black  cloth  and  clerical  boots  rode 
neck-and-neck  with  the  scarlet  coats,  and  "  Tally 
Ho  !  "  was  in  their  mouths  as  often  as  "  Pax 
Vobiscum."  The  priest  in  Lover's  Rory  O'More 
is  of  this  ilk.  He  loves,  as  Rory  says,  to  "  take 
a  dart  after  the  hounds."  The  Father  Tom 
Loftus  of  Jach  Hinton  is  both  sporting  priest 
and  convivialist.  When  Hinton  meets  him  on 
the  boat  en  route  to  Loughrea,  he  finds  him  deep 
in  a  game  of  cards  with  a  farmer,  maintaining 
at  the  same  time  a  heated  religious  controversy 
with  a  Quaker,  and  a  very  gallant  conversation 
with  a  lady,  and,  under  the  inspiration  of  re- 
peated hot  tumblers,  conducting  the  triple  cam- 
paign like  a  general.  A  few  words  from  Father 
Tom's  conversation,  addressed  now  to  his  oppo- 
nent at  cards,  now  to  tlio  Quaker,  now  to  the 


TYPES   AND  TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  247 

lady,  will  serve  to  bring  Lever's  favorite  type 
of  priest  before  the  reader  :  — 

"  '  There  ye  go,  six  of  spades.  Play  a  spade, 
av  ye  have  one,  Mr.  Larkins  —  For  a  set  of 
shrivelled  up  craytures,  with  nothing  but  thee 
and  thou  for  a  creed,  to  deny  the  real  ould 
ancient  faith  that  Saint  Peter  and  —  the  ace  of 
diamonds ;  that  tickled  you  under  the  short 
ribs  —  not  you,  Mrs.  Carney  —  for  a  sore  time 
you  have  of  it ;  and  an  angel  of  a  woman  ye 
are ;  and  the  husband  that  could  be  cruel  to 
you,  and  take — The  odd  trick  out  of  you,  Mr. 
Larkins.  No,  no,  I  deny  it  —  nego  in  omnibus^ 
Domi7ie.  What  does  Origen  say  ?  The  rock, 
SRjs  he,  is  Peter ;  and  if  you  translate  the  pas- 
sage without  —  Another  kettlef ul,  if  you  please. 
I  ^o  far  the  ten,  Misther  Larkins.  Trumps  I 
another  —  another  —  hurroo  !  By  the  tower  of 
Clonmacnoise,  I'll  beggar  the  bank  to-night. 
Malheureux  au  jeux  heureux  en  amou)\  as  we 
used  to  say  formerly.     God  forgive  us !  ' 

''  With  these  words,  the  priest  pushed  the 
cards  aside,  replenished  the  glasses,  and  began 
the  following  melody  to  an  air  much  resembling 
Sir  Roger  de  Coverley. 

"  '  To-morrow  I'll  just  be  three  score ; 

May  never  worse  fortune  betide  me, 
Than  to  have  a  hot  tumbler  before, 

And  a  beautiful  crayture  beside  me. 
If  this  world's  a  stage,  as  they  say, 

And  that  men  are  the  actors,  I'm  certain, 


248  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

In  the  after-piece  I'd  like  to  play, 

And  be  there  at  the  fall  of  the  curtain. 
Whack !  fol  lol. 

"  '  No,  no,  Mrs.  Carney,  I'll  take  the  vestment 
on  it,  nothing  of  the  kind  —  the  allusion  is  most 
discreet  —  but  there  is  more. 

"  '  For  the  pleasures  of  youth  are  a  flam ; 
To  try  them  again,  pray  excuse  me ; 
I'd  rather  be  priest  that  I  am, 

With  the  rites  of  the  church  to  amuse  me. 
Sure  there's  naught  like  a  jolly  old  age, 

And  the  patriarchs  knew  this,  it  said  is ; 
For  though  they  looked  sober  and  sage, 

Faith  they  had  their  own  fun  with  the  ladies  1 
Whack  !  fol  lol.'  "  i 

That  is  Father  Tom  the  convivialist.  As 
sportsman  it  is  this  reverend  gentleman  who 
backs  Hinton's  horse  to  win  in  the  steeple- 
chase, rides  over  the  course  with  him,  and 
tells  him  knowingly  how  the  obstacles  should 
be  approached  and  surmounted. 

With  these  convivial  and  sporting  priests  the 
gentry  had  a  point  of  contact ;  they  stood  upon 
the  common  ground  of  similar  tastes ;  and  it  is 
natural  that  these  should  be  the  types  of  Catho- 
lic priests  to  appear  most  frequently  in  tlie 
pages  of  the  novelists  of  the  gentry.  With 
1  Jack  Ilintoriy  p.  56. 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  249 

the  priests  of  the  better  sort  the  gentry  novel- 
ists do  not  appear  well  acquainted ;  now  and 
then  one  is  introduced  as  a  kind  of  perfunctory 
acknowledgment,  it  would  seem,  that  such 
characters  existed.  Occasionally  a  self-respect- 
ing, orderly,  benevolent  Roman  clergyman  may 
be  seen  dining  perhaps  with  the  lord  of  the  soil 
and  the  Established  Church  rector.  They  appear 
but  seldom,  however.  It  is  to  the  novelists  of 
the  peasantry  that  one  must  go  for  convincing 
pictures  of  the  priests.  The  tippling,  hunting 
priests  of  the  novelists  of  the  gentry  are 
not  quite  feasible  ;  incompatible  qualities  are 
brought  together  in  them,  and  form  a  combina- 
tion that  is  against  the  truth  of  nature.  Their 
good  priests  are  generally  shadowy  and  conven- 
tional. It  is  in  the  stories  of  Carleton  and  of 
his  brother  novelists  of  the  peasantry  that  the 
true  priests  are  to  be  met. 

Carleton,  like  Lever  and  others,  introduces 
convivial  priests ;  he  too  combines  in  them 
seemingly  incompatible  qualities;  but  Carleton 
makes  a  blend  of  which  neither  Lever  nor  his 
fellows  had  the  secret,  a  vital  product,  a  genu- 
ine transcript  of  a  national  type  that  flourished 
when  he  himself  was  a  boy.     The    priests  in 


250  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

Shane  FaclKs  Wedding  and  in  The  Station  may 
be  taken  as  representatives  of  one  class.  They 
are  burly,  large-bodied,  cordial,  kindl}^  fellows, 
with  overwhelming  animal  spirits,  immense  hun- 
gers and  thirsts,  and  an  inordinate  love  for  the 
pleasures  of  the  table  that  showed  itself  on  the 
rare  occasions  when  anything  like  luxuries  were 
within  reach.  They  overflowed  with  a  w^ld 
wit  that  played  with  everything  in  heaven  and 
earth,  and  on  feasts  and  festivals,  stimulated 
with  poteen,  they  poured  over  the  company  a 
flood  of  humor  and  drollery,  quips  and  gibes, 
banter  and  pungent  satire,  that  swept  every- 
thing irresistibly  along  with  it.  They  eschewed 
undue  seriousness ;  they  unbent  readily ;  neither 
profession  nor  creed  could  shackle  or  stiffen 
their  warm  humanity.  Serious  thoughts  were, 
at  merrymakings,  thrust  aside  to  give  place 
to  more  or  less  harmless  revelry  and  festivity. 
They  seemed  on  easier  terms  with  their  Maker 
than  their  heretic  brethren,  who  lived  as  in 
a  taskmaster's  eye.  Their  religious  devotion 
was  so  hearty  and  unquestioning  that  they  had 
no  fear  that  a  jest,  even  on  sacred  matters, 
would  be  taken  amiss.  "  l^egging  your  pardon, 
we'll  liave  nothing  more  about  the  Bible,"  says 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  251 

the  priest  in  the  The  Station  to  the  Protestant 
who,  as  the  fun  was  beginning,  sought  to  draw 
him  into  an  untimely  religious  controversy. 
"  We  can't  always  carry  long  faces  like  Metho- 
dist parsons.  .  .  .  Come,  ...  let  the  Bible 
take  a  nap,  and  give  us  a  song."^ 

There  was  nothing  of  the  hypocrite  about 
these  men  ;  they  were  not  ascetics,  to  be  sure, 
but  if  they  loved  food  and  drink  and  fun,  were 
shrewd,  and  had  an  eye  to  the  main  chance, 
they  had  also  an  honest  faith,  stood  up  for  it 
stanchly,  were  kind,  helpful,  generous,  and  on 
the  whole  performed  their  duties  with  faithful- 
ness. The  difference  between  Lever's  convivial 
priests  and  Carleton's  lies  in  this  :  the  innuen- 
does of  speech  and  the  general  behavior  of 
Lever's  priests  are  inconsistent  with  the  profes- 
sionally honest  man,  while  Carleton's  priestly 
convivialists,  in  the  height  of  their  excesses, 
even  in  the  most  unbridled  and  audacious 
sallies  of  poteen-inspired  wit,  whether  sober 
or  ''half  gone,"  are,  in  their  sentiments,  moral, 
sound,  and  honest ;  they  somehow  contrive 
always  to  maintain  a  professional  air,  and  even 
when  the  host  must  steady  their  homeward 
1  Traits  and  Stories,  Vol.  I,  p.  196. 


252  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

steps,  can  cover  themselves  decently  with  some 
shreds  and  patches  of  clerical  dignity. 

At  the  opposite  extreme  from  these  convivial 
priests  stand  the  Father  Roche  of  Valentine 
M'Qlutchy^  Banim's  Father  Connell,  and  their 
like.  They  are  guileless  men,  of  pious,  duti- 
ful lives,  who  move  about  in  works  of  charity. 
They  are  peacemakers,  stepping  in  between 
members  of  their  flock  and  a  murderous  ven- 
geance, or  between  the  Whiteboys  and  their 
victim,  or  reconciling  hostile  factions.  Nor 
are  they  meek  and  humble  men  only,  but  of 
heroic  mould  too,  when  the  occasion  calls.  It 
is  this  type  of  priest  that  inspired  Banim's 
popular  ballad,  so  full  of  fire  and  feeling, 
Soggarth  Aroon  (Priest  dear)  :  — 

"  Who,  in  the  winter's  night, 

Soggarth  Aroon, 
When  the  cold  blast  did  bite, 

Soggarth  Aroon 
Came  to  my  cabin  door, 
And,  on  the  earthen  floor, 
Knelt  by  me  sick  and  poor, 

Soggarth  A  roon  ? 

"Who,  on  the  marriage  day, 

Soggarth  Aroon, 

Made  the  poor  cabin  gay, 

Soggarth  A  roon  ? 


TYPES  AND  TYPICAL  INCIDENTS  253 

And  did  both  laugh  and  sing, 
Making  our  hearts  to  ring, 
At  the  poor  christening, 
Sog garth  Aroon  ? 

"  Who,  as  friend  only  met, 

Sog  garth  Aroon, 
Never  did  flout  me  yet, 

Sog  garth  Aroon? 
And  when  my  heart  was  dim 
Gave,  while  his  eye  did  brim, 
What  I  should  give  to  him, 

Soggarth  Aroon? 

"  Och,  you  and  only  you, 

Soggarth  Aroon, 
And  for  this  I  was  true  to  you, 

Soggarth  Aroon; 
In  love  they'll  never  shake, 
'When  for  old  Ireland's  sake 
We  a  true  part  did  take, 

Soggarth  A  rooji ! " 

Besides  the  kinds  of  priests  already  men- 
tioned, there  is  a  goodly  company  of  rough- 
and-ready  priests  and  curates,  never  wanting 
for  a  sharp  word  to  an  antagonist,  and  handy 
with  fist  or  horsewhip  to  stop  a  fight  at  fair 
or  market,  admonish  an  unruly  member,  or 
clear  out  a  riotous  shebeen  house. 

Quite  in  contrast  with  the  Catholic  priests, 
half-educated,  peasant-born  for  the  most  part, 


254  IRISH    LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

and  barely  able  to  subsist  upon  such  clues  as 
they  contrived  to  collect  from  a  poverty- 
stricken  peasantry,  were  the  clergy  of  the 
Established  Church,  with  their  vested  inter- 
est in  the  wealth  of  the  Establishment  which 
tended  to  breed  a  pride  and  arrogance  that 
too  often  filled  the  room  of  faith  and  works. 
Most  of  the  clergy  in  the  novels  are  products 
of  this  tendency,  and  are  introduced  by  way  of 
satire  upon  the  order.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Lucre 
of  Valentine  M'  Clutchy  is  one  of  these.  He  is 
an  absentee  churchman.  Holding  a  handsome 
living,  he  pays  a  curate  a  pittance  to  attend 
to  his  duties,  visits  his  parish  only  occasionally, 
and  lives  in  London  or  Dublin.  This  rector 
is  a  portly  man,  the  mould  of  form,  highly 
connected  in  England.  He  has  a  fine  con- 
tempt for  the  vulgarity  of  Dissenters  and 
for  Irish  priests.  He  clothes  himself  in 
purple  and  fine  linen,  fares  sumptuously  every 
day,  and  will  be  a  bishop  by  and  by.  The 
Rev.  Dr.  Miller  of  One  of  Tfiem  is  a  varia- 
tion of  the  same  type.  He  is  a  bachelor  with 
a  small  house  furnished  in  the  perfection  of 
comfort,  where  everything  from  the  careful  dis- 
posal of  a  fire-screen  to  the  noiseless  gait  of 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  25^ 

the  footmen  shows  that  supervision  and  disci- 
pline prevail.  His  hobby  is  admirable  little 
dinners,  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  social  enjoyment, 
the  company  well  chosen,  the  wines  of  the 
choicest,  the  viands  de\'ised  and  executed  with 
a  gourmet's  finest  taste.  He  finds  his  chief 
happiness  in  the  consciousness  of  having  done 
everything  possible  for  the  comfort  of  his 
guests,  and  in  quietly  watching  their  enjoy- 
ment and  appreciation  of  his  hospitality.  A 
replica  of  the  same  portrait  is  the  mellow- 
looking,  well-cared-for  vicar  in  Sir  Brooke 
Fosbrooke,  a  perfect  type  of  sociable  old  bache- 
lorhood in  its  aspect  of  not  unpleasant  selfish- 
ness, set  down  by  his  acquaintances  as  "  an 
excellent  fellow,  though  not  much  of  a  parson." 
Still  another  type  is  the  decorous  Evangeli- 
cal curate  of  Roland  Casliel,  wdio  laments  the 
prevalence  in  Ireland  of  the  obscuring  mists 
of  Papist  superstition  and  ignorance,  deprecates 
the  gambling  and  dissipations  of  the  gentry, 
fascinates  the  ladies  with  his  gentle  ways  and 
little  sallies  of  pleasantry,  and  entertains  them 
with  talk  of  art  and  belles  lettres. 

At  the  opposite    extreme   from  these  ambi- 
tious,   epicurean,    and    society   rectors,  vicars. 


256  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

and  curates,  is  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield  variety 
of  parish  clergyman,  corresponding  with  the 
Roman  Catholic  priest,  Father  Roche,  of  Carle- 
ton,  and  the  Father  Connell  of  Banim.  Of 
this  last  type,  but  with  more  of  the  student 
and  thinker  about  him  than  commonly  belongs 
to  it,  is  the  curate  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Lucre.  He 
is  a  young  man  with  a  large  family  and  a  small 
salary,  the  latter  allowed  him  by  the  rector. 
He  feeds  the  hungry,  clothes  the  naked,  and 
cares  for  the  souls  of  his  parishioners.  He  is  a 
student,  and  a  liberal  man,  and  is  meant  to 
represent  the  more  spiritually  minded  of  the 
clergy.  Contrasting  him  with  the  rector,  Mr. 
Lucre,  Carleton  remarks,  that  while  the  rector 
is  worshipping  the  King  in  London  and  the 
lord-lieutenant  in  Dublin,  the  curate  is  only 
worshipping  God  in  the  country. 

Of  the  few  dissenting  parsons  who  appear 
in  these  novels  the  character  of  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Sinclair,  of  Jane  Sinclair^  is  presented  in  the 
fullest  detail.  The  traits  of  his  character  are 
all  estimable.  He  combined  a  zeal  in  the  mat- 
ter of  faith  and  morals  with  a  warm  heart,  and 
a  practical  habit  of  charity.  Precept  and  prac- 
tice went  hand  in  hand  with  him.     He  had  no 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  257 

frailties,  but  walked  in  all  the  commandments 
of  the  Lord  blameless.  He  was  a  rigid  Calvin- 
ist ;  had  a  sharp  eye  to  the  spiritual  welfare  of 
his  children;  was  ever  ready  and  willing  to 
point  a  moral  and  adorn  a  tale  for  their  edi- 
fication, planning,  among  other  things,  to  de- 
liver a  course  of  lectures  to  the  family  circle 
on  "  the  duties  and  character  of  women  in  the 
single  and  married  state  of  life  ''  for  the  conso- 
lation of  his  daughter  when  she  was  doubly 
distracted  by  an  unhappy  love  affair  and  the 
monomania,  induced  by  her  father's  favorite 
doctrine,  that  she  was  a  "  castaway "  predes- 
tinated to  eternal  misery. 

The  dissenting  parsons  in  the  novels  range 
between  the  type  represented  by  Mr.  Sinclair 
and  the  type  already  described  in  the  Palatine 
parson  of  Griffin's  Coiner,  who  differed  from 
the  epicurean  clergymen  of  the  Establishment 
chiefly  by  a  generous  infusion  of  cant  and 
hypocrisy,  and  a  satisfaction  of  his  propensi- 
ties for  high  living  by  an  indulgence  in  beef 
and  beer  in  place  of  venison  and  claret. 

If  dissenting  parsons  are  few  and  far  between, 
their  flocks  are  well  represented.  But  the 
Irish    novelists   on   the   whole   refuse   to   take 


258  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

the  Dissenters  seriously  ;  they  are  always 
presented  in  a  medium  of  humor  or  satire.  It 
is  true  that  Carleton  wrote  with  very  solemn 
appreciation  of  Mr.  Sinclair,  with  the  best 
intentions  of  making  him  amiable  and  edifying, 
but  there  was  some  failure  of  sympathy,  and 
the  reverend  gentleman,  with  his  cant  and 
sounding  moralizations,  turned  out  a  venerable 
prig. 

There  was  much  material  in  the  religious 
history  of  Ireland  in  the  first  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century  for  satire,  and  Carleton, 
though  recognizing  the  good  in  the  characters 
and  aims  of  all  persuasions,  was  also  a  fierce 
satirist  of  them  all.  He  struck  a  head  wher- 
ever he  saw  one,  and  allowance  must  be  made 
for  this  when  he  writes  of  the  Dissenters.  The 
hardest  things  said  against  the  Dissenters  are 
embodied  in  the  person  of  Solomon  M' Slime, 
the  religious  attorney  of  Valentine  M'Clutchy^ 
who  makes  it  his  business  to  cover  M'Clutchy's 
villanies  with  the  cloak  of  the  law.  He  is  an 
elder  whose  corner  in  the  conventicle  is  vocal 
Avith  am  ens,  and  whose  lips  ever  drop  with  its 
jargon  of  cant  phrases.  He  is  sanctimonious 
and  hypocritical,  justifying  his  fifth  tumbler  of 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL  INCIDENTS  259 

punch  on  the  ground  that  it  gives  unction  in 
praise  and  prayer,  and  his  advances  to  the  bar- 
maid of  the  tavern  by  arguing  that  they  leave 
him  with  a  vital  sense  of  human  sin  and  frailty. 
When,  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  movement  for  Catholic  Emancipa- 
tion grew  in  strength,  a  new  fear  of  Catholicism 
sprang  up  among  Protestants,  and  a  Protestant 
movement  —  the  New  Reformation  Movement 
it  was  called — was  instituted.  This  was  an 
attempt  at  the  conversion  of  Papists  on  the 
grand  scale  carried  on  vigorously  by  the  pul- 
pit, the  press,  house-to-house  visitations,  and 
discussions  in  which  Bible  divines  and  Catholic 
priests  took  the  platform  and  publicly  wrangled 
over  doctrinal  questions  —  the  usefulness  of 
indiscriminate  Bible  reading,  and  so  on  —  for 
the  edification  of  mixed  audiences  of  all  per- 
suasions. Multitudes  fell  victims  to  this  zeal 
for  proselytizing  people  of  varying  degrees  of 
piety  and  sincerity,  including  a  host  of  old 
women  of  both  sexes.  The  arguments  used  in 
public  and  private  seem  to  have  been  designed 
to  establish  the  moral  and  intellectual  superi- 
ority of  Protestantism  over  the  superstitious 
idolatry  of  Romanism.     The  assumption  of  in- 


260  IRISH   LIFE    IN   IRISH  FICTION 

tellectual  superiority  on  the  part  of  addle-pated 
squires  and  pious  evangelical  lords,  who  knew 
nothing  in  particular  of  their  own  or  any  one 
else's  religion,  is  very  entertaining,  and  Carle- 
ton  turns  it  to  good  comic  advantage.  But  the 
New  Reformers  did  not  rely  solely  upon  the 
strength  of  their  arguments  ;  they  reenforced 
these  with  blankets.  Bibles,  and  soup  tickets 
gratuitously  dispensed  —  tactics  that  met  with 
considerable  temporary  success  in  famine  years 
and  hard  winters. 

Of  converts  from  Romanism  made  by  grace 
or  pure  reason  none  appears  in  the  novels,  and 
the  converts  who  take  a  place  in  the  stories  are 
mainly  of  two  kinds.  M'Clutchy's  papist  bail- 
iff Darby  O'Drive,  a  shrewd,  calculating,  un- 
principled, godless  rascal,  whose  religion  is  all 
from  the  lip  outward,  represents  one  kind.  He 
has  resolved  to  turn  Protestant,  but  is  uncer- 
tain whether,  in  his  particular  circumstances, 
it  will  be  to  his  advantage  to  yield  to  M'Slime's 
arguments  and  turn  Presbyterian,  or  to  Rev. 
Mr.  Lucre's  and  become  a  member  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church.  He  finally  decides  on  the  latter 
course,  that  by  so  doing  he  may  secure  a  posi- 
tion as  jailer.     The  second  kind  of  converts  is 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  201 

of  tlie  meanest  and  most  destitute  of  the  peas- 
antry, wlio,  dreading  winter  hardships  and  fam- 
ine, change  their  faith  for  the  sake  of  blankets 
and  provisions,  until  better  times  make  it  con- 
venient to  return  to  the  bosom  of  their  Church. 
Some  of  the  richest  comic  scenes  of  the  nov- 
els grow  out  of  this  proselytizing  movement. 
Among  these  scenes  is  that  in  which  the  bailiff, 
O'Drive,  a  fresh  convert  to  Protestantism, 
meets  on  the  highway  Bob  Beatty,  a  recent 
convert  to  Popery.  They  at  once  open  an 
argument  on  the  surest  way  to  salvation,  each 
attacking  the  creed  he  has  just  renounced.  The 
discussion,  of  course,  proceeds  from  a  word  to  a 
blow.  The  laborers  in  the  fields  on  either  side 
of  the  road  flock  to  the  spot  to  learn  the  cause 
of  the  skirmish,  and,  finding  a  religious  differ- 
ence at  the  bottom  of  the  trouble,  they  at  once 
take  sides.  Not  being  posted  up  to  date  on  the 
religious  convictions  of  the  combatants,  the 
Protestants  side  with  the  convert  to  Catholi- 
cism, and  the  Catholics  with  the  convert  to 
Protestantism,  and  a  party  fight  is  in  full  smng 
before  either  side  discover  that  the  battle  is 
being  waged  under  a  complete  misapprehension 
of  the  true  state  of  the  case. 


262  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

Another  grotesquely  comic  scene  is  that  in 
which  the  Rev.  Mr.  Lucre,  Father  M'Cabe,  the 
Roman  Catholic  curate,  Father  Roche,  the  old 
priest,  and  Bob  Beatty  (the  same  who  fought 
with  O'Drive)  figure.  Bob  Beatty  is  dying. 
His  wife  is  a  Protestant,  and  is  deter- 
mined her  husband  shall  die  a  "true  blue." 
She  hurries  off  to  fetch  Mr.  Lucre.  The 
Catholic  neighbors,  eager  to  save  Beatty's  soul 
if  possible,  post  off,  some  for  Father  Roche,  and 
some  for  Father  M'Cabe  the  curate.  Mr.  Lucre 
and  Father  M'Cabe,  riding  to  Beatty's,  meet  on 
the  road.  Mr.  Lucre  spurs  on  to  be  first  at  the 
death-bed,  and  M'Cabe,  resolving  not  to  leave 
the  care  of  Bob's  soul  to  a  heretic,  spurs  along 
beside  him,  and  so  they  clatter  on,  cheek  by 
jowl,  in  a  kind  of  "  holy  steeplechase,"  as  Carle- 
ton  calls  it.  The  peasantry.  Catholic  and  Pro- 
testant, watch  eagerly  for  the  appearance  of 
priest  or  parson.  Soon  priest  and  parson  ap- 
pear, sweeping  down  the  road  like  a  whirlwind, 
neck-and-neck.  The  peasantry  grasp  the  situ- 
ation, and  shout  encouragement  as  they  dash 
past :  — 

" '  More  power  to  you.  Father  M'Cabe  ;  give 
him  the  Latin  and  tlie  Bravery  [Iireviary].' 


TYPES   AND   TYriCAL   INCIDENTS  263 

*''The  true  Church  forever,  Father  ^FCabe, 
the  jewel  that  you  war  !  Give  the  horse  the 
spurs,  avourneen.  Sowl,  Paddy,  but  the  hodayh 
parson  has  the  advantage  of  him  in  the  cappuL 
Push  on,  your  reverence  ;  you  have  the  divil 
and  the  parson  against  you,  for  the  one's  drivin' 
on  the  other.'" 

Or,- 

" '  Success,  Mr.  Lucre  I  Push  on,  sir,  and 
don't  let  the  Popish  rebel  send  him  out  of  the 
world  with  a  bandage  on  his  eyes.  Lay  in  the 
Bible,  Mr.  Lucre  !  Protestant  and  True  Blue 
forever  —  hurra  I ' 

" '  Mr.  Lucre,  pull  out ;  I  see  you're  hard  up, 
sir,  and  so  is  your  charger.  Push  him,  sir,  even 
if  he  should  drop.  Death  and  Protestantism 
before  Popery  and  dishonor.'  "  ^ 

Arrived  dripping  with  perspiration  at  the 
dying  man's  house,  they  both  dismount  and 
rush  to  the  bedside.  Mr.  Lucre  seats  himself 
on  one  side  the  bed,  M'Cabe  on  the  other. 
Lucre  seizes  the  dying  man's  right  hand, 
M'Cabe  the  left.  Mr.  Lucre  charges  him  to 
keep  the  faith,  and  reminds  him  that  to  die  a 
Papist  will  seal  his  everlasting  punishment. 
M'Cabe  promises  him  an  eternity  of  suffering, 
if,  after  the  explanations  of  the  true  church  he 

1  Valentine  M'  Clutchy,  pp.  321-322. 


2G4  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  TICTION 

has  received,  he  allows  himself  to  relapse  into 
heresy.  Beatty  remains  non-committal,  and 
only  begs  to  be  let  alone.  He  will  die,  he 
declares,  neither  in  Mr.  Lucre's  creed,  nor  in 
M'Cabe's.  At  this  juncture  the  good  Father 
Roche  enters,  and  Beatty,  saying,  "I'll  die  a 
Christian,"  intrusts  the  care  of  his  soul  to 
Father  Roche.  Thereupon  Mr.  Lucre,  rising, 
pronounces  Bob  non  compos  mentis^  and  departs 
declaring  he  shall  be  buried  according  to  the 
rites  of  the  Established  Church. 

Another  ludicrous  incident  illustrates  very 
truthfully  the  motives  of  one  set  of  converts 
to  Protestantism,  made  by  the  New  Reformers. 
The  rumor  has  gone  abroad  that  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Lucre  is  prepared  to  give  five  guineas  in  cash 
to  each  convert  who  will  "  renounce  the  errors 
of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  embrace  those  of 
the  Church  of  England."  As  a  result  of  the 
rumor,  a  baker's  dozen  of  ragged,  half-starved 
peasants  straggle  one  after  another  to  the  rec- 
tory. They  are  candidates  for  conversion.  It 
is  a  famine  year,  and  they  are  all  ready  to  be- 
come good  Protestants  until  the  new  potatoes 
come  in.  The  following  are  snatches  of  the 
conversation  between  the  Rev.  Mr.  Lucre  and 


TYPES    AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  265 

the  would-be  converts.     i\Ir.  Lucre  is  address- 
ing one  of  them,  Cummins  by  name  :  — 

" '  Cummins,  my  good  friend,  allow  me  to  set 
you  right.  AVe  never  give  a  penny  of  money 
to  anyone  for  the  sake  of  bringing  him  over 
to  our  church  ;  if  converts  come  to  us,  it  must 
be  from  conviction,  not  from  interest.' 

"'I  see,  sir  —  but  sure  I'm  not  wantin'  the 
promise  at  all,  your  honor  —  sure  I  know  you 
must  keep  j^ourselves  clear  anyway  —  only  the 
five  guineas  a  head  that  I'm  tould  is  to  be 
given.' 

'' '  Five  guineas  a  head  !  pray  who  told  you 
so?' 

"'Faith,  sir,  I  couldn't  exactly  say,  but 
every  one  says  it.  It's  said  we're  to  get  five 
guineas  a  head,  sir,  and  be  provided  for,  after. 
I  have  nine  o'  them,  sir,  eight  crathurs  and 
Biddy  herself  —  she  can't  spake  English,  but, 
wid  the  help  o'  God,  I  could  consthrue  it  for 
her.  Faith,  she'd  make  a  choice  Prodestan, 
sir,  for  wanst  she  takes  a  thing  into  her  head, 
the  devil  wouldn't  get  it  out.  As  for  me,  I 
don't  want  a  promise  at  all,  your  reverence, 
barrin'  that  it  'ud  be  plaisin'  to  you,  just  to 
lay  your  forefinger  along  your  nose  —  merely 
to  show  that  we  undherstand  one  another  — 
it  'ud  be  as  good  to  me  as  the  bank.  The 
crathur  on  the  breast  your  reverence,  we'd 
throw  in  as  a  luck  penny,  or  dhuragh,  and 
little  Paddy  we  give  at  half  price.'"  ^ 

1  Valentine  M'  Clutchy,  pp.  227-228. 


266  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

It  is  interesting  to  observe,  in  connection 
with  this  New  Reformation  Movement,  tlie 
bearing  of  the  peasant  when  under  a  fire  of 
arguments  directed  against  his  creed,  often  by 
his  betters  in  education.  Rude  and  illiterate 
as  he  is,  he  shows  a  wonderful  ingenuity  and 
resource  in  blocking  an  argument,  and  silenc- 
ing an  opponent.  Here  is  one  instance  of  the 
many  that  might  be  adduced  from  the  novels. 
A  Protestant,  in  a  controversy  with  a  peasant 
over  his  faith,  remarks  :  — 

" '  And  so,  M'Rory,  you  are  really  such  a 
superstitious  blockhead  as  to  believe  in  pur- 
gatory, are  you  ? ' 

" '  I  believe,  sir,'  retorts  the  peasant,  '  in 
what  my  church  bids  me,  and  what  my  people 
believed  before  me ;  and  what  more  does  your 
honour,  and  the  likes  of  you,  do  nor  that  ?  But, 
in  troth,  in  respect  of  purgatory,  sir,  myself  is 
no  ways  perticular ;  only,  bad  as  it  is,  sure 
your  honour  may  go  further  and  fare  worse  for 
all  that.' "  1 

Before   the   days   of    this  New  Reformation 
Movement,  when  Catholic  Emancipation  fright- 
ened the  Protestants  into  a  zeal  for  controversy 
and  conversion,  and  set  Protestants  and  Catho- 
iLady  Morgan's  O'DonneU,  p.  48. 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  2G7 

lies  by  the  ears,  there  was  often  good  feeling, 
or  at  least  toleration,  and  bigotry  and  bitterness 
slept.  Maxwell  illustrates  this  happy  state  of 
things  by  a  story  of  the  friendship  of  Father 
Patt  Joyce  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Richard  Carson, 
the  Established  Church  rector.  A  peasant  tells 
the  story :  — 

" '  Och  hone  I  isn't  it  a  murder  to  see  the 
clargy  making  such  fools  of  themselves,  now  I 
When  I  was  young,  priest  and  minister  were 
hand  and  glove.  It  seems  to  me  but  yester- 
day, when  Father  Patt  Joyce,  the  Lord  be  good 
to  him  I  lent  Mr.  Carson  a  congregation. 
******* 

" '  Everything  went  on  beautiful,  for  the 
two  clargy  lived  together.  Father  Patt  Joyce 
minded  his  chapel  and  the  flock,  and  Mr. 
Carson  said  prayers  of  a  Sunday  too,  though 
sorrow  a  soul  he  had  to  listen  to  him  but  the 
clerk  —  but  sure  that  was  no  fault  of  his.'  " 

The  story  then  continues,  explaining  how 
the  loan  of  the  congregation  was  effected :  — 

" '  Well,  in  the  evening,  I  was  brought  into 
the  parlour,  and  there  were  their  reverences  as 
cur  coddiogh  ^  as  you  please.  Father  Patt  gave 
me  a  tumbler  of  rael  stiff  punch,  and  the  divil 
a  better  warrant  to  make  the  same  was  within 
the  province  of  Connaught.     We  were  just  as 

^Anglice,  comfortable. 


268  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

comfortable  as  we  could  be,  when  a  currier'^ 
stops  at  the  door  with  a  letter,  which  he  said 
was  for  Mr.  Carson.  Well,  when  the  minister 
opens  it,  he  got  as  pale  as  a  sheet,  and  I  thought 
he  would  have  fainted.  Father  Patt  crossed 
himself.  "  Arrah,  Dick,"  says  he,  "  the  Lord 
stand  between  you  and  evil !  is  there  anything 
wrong?"  ''I'm  ruined,"  says  he;  "for  some 
had  member  has  wrote  to  the  bishop,  and  told 
him  that  I  have  no  congregation,  because  you 
and  I  are  so  intimate,  and  he's  coming  down 
to-morrow,  with  the  dane^  to  see  the  state  of 
things.  Och,  hone  !  "  says  he,  "I'm  fairly 
ruined."  "And  is  that  all  that's  frettin'  ye?" 
says  the  priest.  "  Arrah,  dear  Dick  "  —  for  they 
called  each  other  be  their  cristeii  names,  —  "is 
this  all?  If  it's  a  congregation  ye  want,  ye 
shall  have  a  dacent  one  to-morrow,  and  lavo 
that  to  me ;  —  and  now  we'll  take  our  drink, 
and  not  matter  the  bishop  a  fig." 

" '  Well,  next  day,  sure  enough,  down  comes 
the  bishop,  and  a  great  retinue  along  with  him; 
and  there  was  Mr.  Carson  ready  to  receive 
him.  "  I  hear,"  says  the  bishop,  mighty  stately, 
"  that  you  have  no  congregation."  "In  faith, 
your  holiness,"  says  he,  "  you'll  be  soon  able  to 
tell  that,"  —  and  in  he  walks  him  to  the  church, 
and  there  were  sitting  threescore  well-dressed 
men  and  women,  and  all  of  them  as  devout  as 
if  they  were  going  to  be  anointed ;  for  that 
blessed  morning.  Father  Patt  whipped  mass 
over  before  ye  had  time  to  bless  yourself,  and 

1  Courier. 


TYPES   AND   TYPICAL   INCIDENTS  269 

the  clanest  of  the  flock  was  before  the  bishop 
in  the  church,  and  ready  for  his  holiness.  To 
see  that  all  behaved  properly,  Father  Patt  had 
hardly  put  off  the  vestments,  till  he  slipped  on 
a  cota  more,'^  and  there  he  sat  in  a  back  sate  like 
any  other  of  the  cono^regation.  I  was  near  the 
bishop's  reverence  ;  he  was  seated  in  an  arm- 
chair belonging  to  the  priest.  —  "  Come  here, 
Mr.  Carson,"  says  he.  "  Some  enemy  of  yours," 
said  the  sweet  old  gentleman,  "  wanted  to  injure 
you  with  me.  But  I  am  now  fully  satisfied." 
And  turning  to  the  dane,  '•  By  this  book  ! "  says 
he,  "I  didn't  see  a  claner  congregation  this 
month  of  Sundays." '"2 

1 A  great-coat.         ^  jyn^ji  Sports  of  the  West,  p.  105. 


CHAPTER  V 

LITERARY   ESTIMATE 

The  years  that  produced  much  of  the  work 
of  Byron  and  Shelley,  Wordsworth  and  Cole- 
ridge, Dickens  and  Thackeray,  and  Tennyson 
and  Browning  in  England,  and  of  Burns  and 
Scott  in  Scotland,  produced  in  Ireland  the 
poetry  of  Moore,  Mangan,  Ferguson,  and  a  few 
others,  some  political  speeches,  the  work  of  the 
novelists  here  considered,  and  little  beside. 
That  Ireland  in  this  period  found  no  greater 
and  no  wider  range  of  utterance  is  to  be  ac- 
counted for  in  part,  no  doubt,  by  the  social 
misery  that  depressed  her  genius,  and  by  the 
constant  fever  of  political  agitation  that  dis- 
tracted it. 

The  Irish  novelists,  from  a  literary  point  of 
view,  may  be  regarded  as  afliliating,  each  more 
or  less  completely,  with  one  of  three  types. 
270 


LITERARY    ESTIMATE  271 

Among  the  novelists  of  the  gentry  there  are 
those  who,  on  the  whole,  are  much  like  the  Eng- 
lish in  character  and  temperament  ;  English  in 
their  seriousness,  steadiness,  and  common  sense  ; 
in  their  unemotional  religious  temper,  untouched 
by  passionate  devotion  or  mystic  enthusiasm ; 
in  the  zeal  to  preach,  and  moralize  everything ; 
and  English  as  strenuous  ''  improvers,"  eager,  to 
use  the  phrase  Arnold  applied  to  the  Philistines, 
to  "  improve  everything  but  themselves  off  the 
face  of  the  earth."  They  have  also  the  weak- 
ness of  lapsing,  at  bad  moments,  into  flatness 
and  humdrum.  Miss  Edgew^orth  and  Mrs.  Hall 
are  of  this  English  type. 

A  second  group,  composed  also  of  novelists 
of  the  gentry,  are  of  the  Anglo-Irish  character 
and  temperament.  This  group  includes  Lady 
Morgan,  Maxwell,  Lever,  Lover,  Croker,  and 
perhaps  ^laturin  and  Grattan.  It  is  curious 
to  consider  how  the  Anglo-Irish  type,  so  distinct 
from  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  Celtic,  arose ; 
whether  it  was  due  to  the  occasional  admixture 
of  Celtic  blood,  to  the  merely  external  contact 
of  the  Saxon  with  the  Irish  Celt,  or  to  establish- 
ment for  a  few  generations  upon  Irish  soil  —  to 
influences  of  climate  and  nature,  bog  and  moun- 


272  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

tain,  the  softer  air,  and  the  salt  breath  of 
the  Atlantic.  With  the  Anglo-Irish  type  litera- 
ture has  made  the  world  more  familiar  than 
with  the  Celtic  Irish,  and  it  is  perhaps  from 
this  peculiar  kind  of  Irishman  that  people 
generally  get  their  conception  of  the  national 

r  character.  This  type  is  lacking  in  the  romance 
and  enthusiasm  of  the  Celt,  while  keeping  much 
of  his  mercurial  nature,  impetuosity,  whimsi- 
cality, and  eccentricity.  In  wit  it  is  brilliant 
and  boisterous,  in  humor  broader.  It  is  frank, 
high-spirited,  dashing,  but  without  the  subtlety, 
the  delicate  sentiment,  the  fine  shades  of  the 
Celtic  nature.  Like  the  Celtic  nature 
impatient  of  reason  and  restraint. 

The  novelists  of  a  third  group  are  of  the 
Celtic  type  of  character  and  temperament,  and 
embody  in  their  own  persons  or  in  their  books 
a  good  measure  of  the  Celtic  qualities.  They 
are  lively,  expansive,  emotional,  self-willed,  ca- 
pricious, quick  in  the  perception  of  the  fitting 
and  in  the  perception  of  the  incongruous  and 
absurd ;  and  volatile,  easily  exalted  and  easily 
depressed  to  sadness  and  melancholy.  Or  as 
children  of  the  mystic  race  of  old  Ireland  they 
are  full  of  tragic  elements,  of   vindictiveness 


the 

"  "J 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  273 

and  subtle  cunning,  of  visionary  faith  and  purity, 
and  passionately  religious,  throwing  about  their 
faith  something  of  the  grace,  the  witchery,  and 
the  romance  of  the  Celt.  In  this  group  belong 
the  novelists  of  the  peasantry  —  the  Banims, 
Griffin,  and  Carleton. 

A  literary  estimate  of  the  Irish  novelists 
begins  naturally  with  Miss  Edgeworth.  Miss 
Edge  worth  takes  a  place  both  in  English  and 
Irish  fiction.  As  regards  her  place  in  English 
fiction,  she,  with  Miss  Burney,  Miss  Austen, 
and  Mrs.  Radcliffe,  carried  off  the  best  share 
of  the  honors  of  novel-writing  between  Sterne 
and  Scott.  Each  of  these  ladies,  in  one  way 
or  another,  extended  the  field  of  fiction  and 
was  a  source  of  new  life.  Miss  Edgeworth  was 
also  one  of  three  women  —  Miss  Austen  and 
Miss  Ferrier  are  the  other  two  —  who  in  the 
first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  wrote 
novels  that  embodied  the  same  ideals,  and 
treated  of  the  everyday  life  of  average  hu- 
manity. Of  these  three  last-named  novelists 
Miss  Edgeworth  was  the  earliest,  and  repre- 
sents a  distinct  step  in  the  history  of  English 
fiction.  Her  Irish  stories  were  the  first  to 
make   a    careful   study  of   provincial   life   and 


274  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

manners,  and  they  did,  in  their  degree,  for 
Ireland  what  Miss  Austen's  novels  did  a  little 
later  for  England,  and  Sir  Walter  Scott's  for 
Scotland.  Thus  her  stories  become  the  pro- 
genitors of  a  countless  family  of  similar  pro- 
ductions. Sir  Walter,  in  the  General  Preface 
to  the  Waverley  novels,  and  in  the  Postscript 
to  Waverley^  acknowledged  his  indebtedness  to 
Miss  Edgeworth,  and,  if  he  may  be  taken 
entirely  at  his  word,  had  from  her  the  idea  of 
doing  for  his  country  what  she  had  done  for 
Ireland. 

Miss  Edgeworth  was  also  the  first  in  Eng- 
lish fiction  to  give  careful  and  respectful  atten- 
tion to  peasant  life.  In  this  respect  she  broke 
new  ground  that  has  since  been  worked  in 
great  detail  by  countless  craftsmen  of  all 
nations.  Testimony  as  to  the  extent  of  her 
influence  comes  from  a  distant  source.  An 
interview  with  Turgueneff,  from  the  London 
Times^  quoted  in  Mrs.  Ritchie's  account  of 
Miss  Edgeworth,  represents  him  as  asserting 
that  it  was  her  stories  of  Irish  life  that  sug- 
gested to  him  the  idea  which  subsequently 
bore  fruit  in  his  studies  of  the  Russian  peasant. 

With    Miss    Edgeworth   Irish  fiction  began. 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  275 

Her  Castle  Rackrent  was  the  first  story  to 
introduce  English  novel-readers  to  Irish  life, 
to  a  new  condition  of  society,  a  new  set  of 
manners,  and  a  new  range  of  character  and 
emotion.  Over  Miss  Austen,  who  had  no  new 
country  to  reveal,  and  nothing  to  tell  that 
England  did  not  already  know.  Miss  Edge- 
worth  had  the  advantasfes  of  the  full  charm  of 
novelty,  of  a  quaint  and  obscure  region  of  odd 
manners  and  customs ;  and  over  Miss  Ferrier, 
that  she  held  undisturbed  possession  of  her 
field,  and  did  not  see  one  far  greater  than  her- 
self, as  Miss  Ferrier  saw  Sir  Walter,  rise  to 
overshadow  her  fame. 

Not  only  had  no  novels,  up  to  the  appearance 
of  Castle  Rackrent^  been  devoted  to  the  study 
of  Irish  life,  but  even  Irish  character  had  made 
only  casual  appearances  in  English  literature. 
She  entered  then  upon  untrodden  ground  when 
she  introduced  her  countrymen  as  they  were 
in  truth  and  reality.  Her  national  tales  caught 
with  precision  the  devil-may-care  tone  of  the 
life  of  the  pre-Union  gentry.  The  peasantry 
she  heartily  sympathized  with  as  far  as  she 
understood  them;  she  never  patronized  them, 
or    treated    them    superciliously.       She    was, 


276  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

nevertheless,  unable  to  present  the  range  and 
force  of  their  feelings,  or  the  subtle  lights  and 
shades  of  their  nature  —  their  fervent  religious 
spirit,  their  superstitions,  their  melancholy, 
their  tenderness,  their  touch  of  poetic  senti- 
ment, the  depth  to  which  their  sorrow  reached, 
their  capacity  for  rapturous  happiness. 

Of  Miss  Edgeworth's  literary  merits  Castle 
Rackrent  is  the  best  example.  In  point  of 
style  and  general  literary  dexterity,  none  of 
her  successors  has  surpassed  it.  This  tale, 
short  and  unambitious,  is  still  a  masterly 
sketch,  accurate  and  consistent.  It  is,  as  a 
novel  of  manners  should  be,  compact  of  obser- 
vation, and  carries  lightly  upon  a  rapid  current 
of  narrative  a  quantity  of  curious  and  interest- 
ing information  as  to  Irish  manners,  customs, 
and  characters.  It  contains,  also,  in  Old  Thady, 
the  steward,  at  once  the  most  living  and  com- 
plete of  all  the  people  that  move  through  Miss 
Edgeworth's  stories,  and  one  of  the  most  subtly 
drawn  and  skilfully  presented  characters  in  the 
whole  course  of  the  Irish  novel.  He  is  inter- 
esting not  only  as  an  old  Irish  original,  but  as 
an  exemplar  of  a  perpetually  recurring  type  of 
faithful  retainer.     All  the   characters  of    this 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  277 

story  are  alive,  too,  even  the  minor  ones,  a 
thing  that  can  be  said  generally  only  of  the  best 
novels.  More  in  the  way  of  characterization 
could  not,  it  would  seem,  be  accomplished  in  the 
same  space  than  is  done  in  Castle  Rackrent.  It 
is  all  of  a  piece  and  of  unflagging  inspiration.  It 
has  the  charm  of  perfect  unconsciousness.  Here, 
for  once.  Miss  Edgeworth  loses  herself  absolutely 
in  the  story.  Hers  was  a  nature  of  charming 
prose,  sprightly,  intelligent,  observant,  bright- 
ened by  humor,  and  warmed  by  kindly  feeling. 
These  traits  show  in  the  style  and  spirit  of  the 
book.  It  is  full  of  wit  and  pathos,  of  bits  of 
minute  observation,  and  of  vividly  pictured  situa- 
tion. In  style  it  is  spring}',  alive  with  dialogue  in 
the  national  manner,  and  told  in  language  which, 
though  almost  without  dialect,  is  yet  in  idiom  and 
flavor  racy  of  the  soil.  It  will  be  sure  of  a  per- 
manent, if  humble,  place  in  English  literature. 

The  Absentee^  Ennui,  and  Ormond,  though 
not  equal  to  Castle  Rackrent,  are  still  brightly 
written,  attractive,  and  interesting  tales,  with 
much  skilful  painting  of  manners,  and  light  and 
telling  social  satire.  The  Absentee  and  Ennui 
are  strong  in  narrative  interest,  and  the  plots 
effective  from  this  point  of  view. 


278  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

The  bulk  of  Miss  Eclgeworth's  stories  and 
novels  have  to  do  with  English  life,  the  four 
Irish  tales  representing  but  a  small  part  of  her 
work  in  fiction.  These  last  are,  however,  in 
her  happiest  and  most  original  vein,  most  free 
from  her  characteristic  faults  of  preaching  and 
teaching,  and  likely  to  live  a  longer  life  outside 
the  nursery  and  the  schoolroom  than  her  moral 
tales  and  English  novels. 

Mrs.  Anna  Maria  Hall,  as  a  moralizer  even 
more  facile  and  persistent  than  Miss  Edge- 
worth,  has,  like  her,  the  imperfect  sense  of  the 
complexity  of  human  motive  that  permits  her 
complacently  to  solve  the  knottiest  problems 
of  human  conduct  by  the  application  of  a  few 
simple  moral  laws.  Irishmen,  noting  this  didac- 
tic tendency,  declared  that  such  a  "  raisoner  " 
must  have  English  blood  in  her  veins.  Mrs. 
Hall,  whether  she  writes  of  the  gentry,  or  of 
the  lights  and  shadows  of  peasant  life,  hardly 
ever  escapes  from  the  mediocre.  The  ground 
she  covers  has  been  covered  by  others  with  a 
fuller  knowledge  and  deeper  sympathy.  Her 
work,  with  little  or  no  distinction  of  form  or 
style,  has  been  supplanted. 

Lady  Morgan,  witli  her  hysterical  sentimen- 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  279 

tality  and  shrill  satirical  vehemence,  is  very 
different  from  Miss  Edgeworth  and  Mrs.  Hall, 
with  their  English  propriety  and  restraint.  Her 
pure  romances,  reflections  of  German  romance 
in  their  gushing  sentimentality  and  enthusiasm 
for  clouds,  waterfalls,  and  the  moral  sublime, 
stand  without  the  scope  of  Irish  fiction  as 
exotic  in  conception,  subject,  and  coloring. 
Her  Irish  stories.  The  Wild  Irish  Girl,  0' Don- 
nelly Florence  Macarthy,  and  The  O'Briens  and 
0' Flaherty s  enjoyed  a  great  vogue  in  their  day, 
due  almost  altogether,  it  would  seem,  to  the 
fact  that  she  voiced  liberal  patriotic  sentiment 
at  the  time  of  the  Emancipation  agitation,  when 
Emancipators  welcomed  a  champion,  and  gov- 
ernment journals  attacked  acrimoniously  every- 
thing tinged  with  Emancipation  sympathies. 
Her  books  became  a  centre  of  political  contro- 
versy. Every  one  read  them.  Tlte  Wild  Irish 
Grirl  went  through  seven  editions  in  two  years. 
The  O'Briens  and  O'Flahertys,  in  its  satire  and 
its  romance,  in  its  expression  of  patriotic  senti- 
ment, and  in  its  pictures  of  Irish  life,  is  the  best 
of  the  national  tales.  These  tales  bid  for  popu- 
lar favor  by  an  incongruous  combination  of  ro- 
mantic interest  and  interest  in  the  portrayal  of 


280  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

manners,  with  an  element  of  social  satire  and  a 
vein  of  patriotic  sentiment.  The  romance  in 
Lady  Morgan's  fiction  is  a  kind  of  mawkish, 
sentimental  vaporing,  that  draws  on  no  depth 
of  feeling,  and  to  which  the  reader  of  to-day 
will  not  patiently  submit.  The  social  satire, 
considering  its  source,  is  sharp  and  harsh  in 
tone,  and  very  bad-tempered.  The  best  spots 
in  Lady  Morgan's  novels  are  those  in  which 
the  customs  and  characters  of  the  lower  Irish 
are  delineated,  or,  to  quote  one  of  the  ameni- 
ties of  her  Blackwood  critics,  "  She  is  more  at 
home  in  painting  the  rude  manners  in  which 
she  was  bred  than  those  of  the  civilized  coun- 
tries into  which  she  has  intruded."  There 
seems  something  contagious  in  the  drolleries  of 
the  humble  Irish  out  of  which  even  the  weakest 
of  Irish  stories  can  make  capital.  Lady  Morgan 
caught  them  well,  and  presented  them  in  the 
true  Hibernian  spirit.  Country  postilions,  the 
"mine  hosts"  of  the  poteen  houses,  Dublin 
porters,  drivers,  and  domestics  she  hit  off  to 
the  life.  Her  satire  of  the  gay  side  of  the 
higher  social  life  of  Dublin  is  also  spirited,  and 
readable  even  to-day.  Her  patriotic  sentiment 
has  the  ring  of  sincerity  and  enthusiasm,  and 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  281 

springs  from  a  zealous  hope  for  a  united  coun- 
try where  men  of  all  persuasions  could  stand 
upon  common  ground. 

In  all  that  concerns  literary  craftsmanship 
Lady  Morgan  fails.  There  are  clumsy,  chaotic 
plots,  and  actions  overburdened  with  antiqua- 
rian dissertations  and  political  discussions. 
When  a  critic  of  the  London  Quarterly,  refer- 
ring to  the  style  of  her  novels,  recommended 
"the  immediate  purchase  of  a  spelling-book 
and  a  pocket  dictionary,"  he  advised  well,  if 
not  courteously.  The  style  is  not  merely  bad, 
but  positively  objectionable  in  its  attempts 
at  fine  writing,  its  endless  series  of  barbarisms 
and  solecisms,  and  its  sprinkling  of  French 
and  Italian  words  that  serve  no  better  purpose 
than  to  display  the  author's  acquaintance  with 
those  languages.  Lady  Morgan  was  a  literary 
opportunist.  Her  novels,  now  only  names, 
owed  the  vogue  they  enjoyed  in  their  own 
day  to  the  fact  that  they  discussed  questions 
of  absorbing  contemporary  interest,  rather  than 
to  any  intrinsic  literary  merit. 

It  is  English,  not  Irish,  fiction  that  has  the 
best  claim  to  Charles  Robert  Maturin.  His 
true  place  is  not  among  these  national  novelists, 


282  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

bat  in  the  school  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe  with  the 
writers  of  tales  of  terror,  among  whom  he  be- 
longs by  virtue  of  his  Melmoth  the  Wanderer^  a 
romance  of  the  true  raw-head-and-bloody -bones 
variety  that  has  now  pretty  well  run  its  course 
to  find  a  last  refuge  in  the  penny-dreadful. 
He  finds  a  place  as  a  novelist  of  Ireland  through 
his  Women^  or  Pour  et  Coritre,  a  story  which 
curiously  combines  sectarian  animus  with 
floods  of  romantic  sentiment.  Maturin's  ro- 
mances attracted  Scott  and  Byron,  and  many 
critics  have  given  them  high,  though  qualified, 
praise.  Bombastic  extravagance  of  language, 
tangled  plots,  and  impossible  incidents  charac- 
terize them  all.  A  remarkable  eloquence  in 
descriptions  of  turbulent  passion  is  his  strong 
point. 

If  there  is  little  of  the  Irishman  in  Ma- 
turin  there  is  plenty  in  the  tone  of  spirits,  the 
love  for  the  grotesque,  the  convivial  and  bois- 
terously social  bent,  and  the  flavor  of  wit  tliat 
characterize  William  Hamilton  Maxwell.  As 
the  inventor  of  the  rollicking  novel  he  can  lay 
claim  to  originality,  and  in  this  kind  as  well  as 
in  the  novel  of  military  life  he  is  clearly  the 
prototype  of  his  co-worker,  Charles  Lever.     In 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  283 

the  Stories  of  Waterloo  Maxwell  connected  the 
thread  of  a  lictitiuus  narrative  with  the  great 
events  of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  as  Lever  did 
after  him,  and  in  these  short  tales,  as  in  his 
longer  novels,  diversified  the  adventures  in  flood 
and  field  with  love-making  and  convivialities  in 
a  manner  whose  influence  is  also  clearly  dis- 
cernible in  Lever's  work.  Lever's  western 
squires,  too,  have  a  family  resemblance  to  Max- 
well's ;  and  O'Malley's  servant,  the  inimitable 
Mickey  Free,  is  certainly  a  blood  relation  to 
Captain  Blake's  servant,  Denis  O'Brien.  Lever 
also  adopted  and  made  quite  his  own  Maxwell's 
favorite  hero,  the  young  Irish  gentleman-soldier, 
with  his  bounding  ambition,  and  mixture  of 
recklessness,  acuteness,  jovial  abandonment  to 
pleasure,  and  fine  fighting  qualities.  And  the 
background  of  Maxw^ell's  stories,  as  of  Lever's 
best  novels,  is  the  wild  life  of  the  west  of  Ire- 
land, and  the  riotous  careers  of  its  irrepressible, 
law-defying  squires  and  squireens. 

Maxwell,  unsuccessful  with  his  two  historical 
novels,  O'Hara  and  The  Dark  Lady  of  Doona^ 
is  at  his  best  in  Wild  Sports  of  the  West  and 
Captain  Blahe.  Wild  Sports  of  the  West  is  a 
genuine    book,    with    life    in    it    still.       It    is 


284  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

imbued  with  the  spirit  of  sport,  and  breathes 
the  air  of  the  woods  and  streams.  Not  its 
least  attraction  is  the  author's  jaunty,  offhand 
manner.  He  appears  in  print  with  an  air  as 
free  and  easy  as  though  he  were  tramping  the 
country  with  dog  and  gun.  There  is  no  sug- 
gestion of  literary  cant  or  punctilio.  He  writes 
as  if  for  his  own  amusement,  without  effort  or 
weariness,  and  in  a  style  as  good  as  is  apt  to 
be  at  the  command  of  the  "  gentleman  author." 
Captain  Blake  owes  its  charm  to  the  vivid 
scenes  from  the  life  of  the  west,  and  to  the 
gay,  wild  spirit  which  persistently  regards  life 
as  a  long  frolic  into  which  is  to  be  crowded 
the  greatest  possible  amount  of  sport  and 
drink  and  fun. 

Maxwell's  friend,  Charles  James  Lever,  is  an 
embodiment  of  the  popular  conception  of  the 
Anglo-Irishman.  He  is  certainly  un-English  ; 
he  is  quite  as  certainly  Irish  in  his  taste  for 
sociability  and  conviviality,  in  his  improvident 
recklessness,  and  in  his  love  for  boisterous 
practical  joking.  In  the  absence  of  serious 
emotion  or  subtlety  in  any  direction,  in  being 
quite  untouched  by  the  romantic  spirit,  and  a 
perfect  stranger  to  the  religious  spirit,  he  was  un- 


LITERARY  ESTIMATE  286 

Celtic.  A  voluminous  author,  he  is  not  destined 
to  be  read  in  his  completeness,  and  the  criti- 
cism that  classifies  his  books  and  indicates 
those  that  represent  his  talent  and  range  of 
subject,  will  do  him  best  service.  In  the  com- 
position of  his  novels,  Lever  used  three  kinds 
of  material  —  Irish  life,  military  life,  and  con- 
tinental life.  Often  all  three  are  combined  in 
a  single  story.  His  novels  may  be  conven- 
iently classified  according  to  the  predominance 
of  one  or  other  kind  of  subject-matter.  The 
best  of  the  books  that  take  their  material 
chiefly  from  Irish  life  are  perhaps  Harry  Lor- 
requer.  Charles  O'Malley^  Jack  Hinton,  The 
O'Donoghue,  The  Knight  of  Gwynne^  and  The 
Martins  of  Cro'  Martin. 

The  first  three  of  these  stand  apart  from  the 
rest  of  Lever's  work  by  their  unflagging  animal 
spirits  and  the  buoyant,  unreflective  temper 
that  pervades  them  from  cover  to  cover.  The 
reader  who,  without  other  sources  of  infor- 
mation, goes  to  these  books  for  a  faithful 
transcript  of  Irish  life  will,  however,  be  dis- 
appointed. He  will  be  troubled  with  doubts 
as  to  the  possibility  of  modes  of  life  such  as 
these  stories  present,  puzzled  at  the  grotesque- 


286  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

ness  of  things  and  people,  and  astonished  at 
the  extraordinary  amount  of  uproar,  riotous- 
ness,  inebriety,  and  assault  and  battery.  He 
will  think  himself  in  a  world  of  farce  and  ex- 
travaganza. And  the  world  of  these  stories  is 
farcical  and  extravagant.  Hence  as  novels  of 
manners  they  are  not  what  they  might  be. 
The  point  of  contact  with  reality  is  too  un- 
certain. They  direct  the  eye,  in  presenting 
incidents  and  manners,  to  the  strange,  the 
grotesque,  the  whimsical,  and  the  absurd.  And 
character  is  similarly  treated.  Scrapes  and 
adventures  enough,  for  example,  are  laid  at  the 
door  of  one  of  the  madcap  heroes  to  diversify 
the  lives  of  a  score  of  roisterers.  The  inci- 
dents of  the  story  were  often  true  ;  the  char- 
acters often  copies  of  men  that  lived — for 
Lever's  method,  in  spite  of  apparent  unreality, 
is  the  realist's  method  of  observation  and  re- 
production—  but  a  reckless  disregard  of  per- 
spective and  atmosphere  jumbles  all  together  in 
a  kind  of  farcical  phantasmagoria.  Yet  however 
unlike  reality,  however  uncertain  the  points 
of  contact  with  it  may  be,  there  always  are 
points  of  contact.  The  materials  for  this  pe- 
culiar kind  of  extravaganza  were  to  be  found 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  287 

nowhere  but  in  Ireland  ;  and  though  the  stories 
distorted  the  face  of  Irish  life,  they  were  true 
to  the  temper  of  a  particular  class  and  a  par- 
ticular period,  and  to  the  characteristics  of 
certain  national  types.  The  subalterns  met 
nowadays  at  dances  and  drawing-rooms  are 
not  Lorrequers  and  O'Malleys,  but  these  char- 
acters were  in  their  traits,  impulses,  and 
motives,  a  fairly  close  literary  expression  for 
a  certain  kind  of  young  Irish  gentleman  sol- 
dier of  a  bygone  day. 

In  structure  these  stories  are  alike.  In  the 
first  few  chapters  the  hero  falls  in  love ;  in 
the  last  few  the  arrangements  for  the  marriage 
are  completed.  The  love-affair  is  merely  a 
thread  upon  which  countless  anecdotes  are 
strung,  as  Poe,  in  his  bad-tempered  review, 
remarks,  "  with  about  as  much  method,  and 
half  as  much  dexterity  as  we  see  ragged  urchins 
employ  in  stringing  the  kernels  of  nuts."  That 
part  of  the  story  between  the  falling  in  love 
and  the  marriage  arrangements  is  filled  in 
with  fox-hunts,  steeplechases,  practical  jokes, 
after-dinner  quarrels,  duels,  military  adven- 
tures, and  perhaps  a  peninsular  campaign. 

Lever's  style  is  fly-away  and  harum-scarum, 


288  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  EICTION 

not  merely  as  compared  with  the  great  masters 
of  style,  bat  as  compared  with  practitioners 
in  his  OAvn  class,  like  Miss  Edgeworth  and 
Croker.  But  for  all  that  the  style  is  alive. 
It  is  quite  equal  to  disposing  creditably  of  the 
matter  in  hand.  His  tales,  told  in  the  breezy, 
straightaway  fashion  of  a  good  raconteur,  have 
the  quality  of  the  spoken,  rather  than  the  writ- 
ten, word. 

By  his  first  three  novels  Lever  clearly  be- 
longs to  the  school  of  Smollett,  and  there  is,  in 
their  lives  and  works,  a  curious  parallel  between 
the  two  men.  Both  wrote  prescriptions  as  well 
as  comic  novels.  Tory  tendencies  tinge  the 
work  of  both.  They  both  put  their  own  and 
their  friends'  adventures  into  their  books. 
Both  were  connected  with  Tory  journals.  Both 
wrote  at  top  speed  and  hated  revision. 
Both  loved  to  present  extravagantly  comic 
originals,  and  both  introduced  military  life, 
noisy,  riotous  scenes,  and  practical  jokes.  But 
though  the  lives  and  works  of  the  two  men 
coincide  in  many  ways.  Lever  is  not  a  disciple 
of  Smollett's.  There  is  nothing  to  show  that 
he  modelled  his  work,  in  style  or  manner,  upon 
his   predecessor.       Coincidence,  not   imitation. 


LITERARY  ESTIMATE  289 

accounts  for  the  resemblance.  Indeed  Lever 
is  nothing  if  not  original.  There  has  been 
nothing  quite  like  him  before  or  since.  He 
shows  no  traces  of  imitation  of  any  other 
humoristic  writer  either  in  general  method  or 
tricks  of  verbal  humor.  Lorrequer^  O'Malley^ 
and  Hinton,  in  particular,  have  all  the  charm 
of  spontaneity,  unaffectedness,  and  perfect  ease. 
There  is  no  struggle  to  say  smart  things  ;  no 
straining  for  effect.  These  three  novels  are 
the  product  of  the  prime  of  the  author's  vigor, 
and  overflow  with  his  most  exuberant  humor. 
There  is  a  vital  quality  about  them,  a  tone  of 
spirits  not  to  be  simulated,  that  will  destine 
them  for  a  long  time  to  come  to  some  sort  of 
remembrance,  and  will  certainly  give  them  a 
longer  life  than  the  later  stories,  which,  though 
freer  from  technical  failings,  lack  this  vivida  vis. 
It  is  to  these  first  three  of  Lever's  novels  only 
that  a  reader  (other  than  a  student  of  the 
manners  of  the  past)  will  be  likely  to  return. 
The  salt  of  fun  and  the  zest  of  life  are  in  them. 
They  reflect  the  high  spirits  and  careless  gayety 
of  the  author's  own  youth,  when  his  eyes  were 
fixed  upon  the  sunnier  prospects  of  life. 

After  Jack  Hinton  a  change  came  over  Lever's 


290  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH   FICTION 

work.  All  the  novels  that  followed,  in  spite 
of  occasional  outbreaks  of  noise  and  farce,  were 
marked  by  a  graver  tone,  and  a  more  serious 
way  of  regarding  life.  Tom  Burke  (1844)  first 
showed  this  tendency,  and  Roland  Cashel  (1850) 
represents  another  decided  step  in  the  direction 
of  gravity  and  seriousness.  Phil  Fogarty^ 
hy  Harry  Rollicker^  Thackeray's  travesty  of 
Lever,  was  in  part  responsible  for  the  change. 
It  completely  exposed  the  extravagant  nonsense 
of  Lever's  gasconading  military  heroes,  and 
reduced  the  rollicking  style  to  absurdity. 
Though  Lever  took  Thackeray's  joke  in  good 
part,  the  parody  staggered  him  ;  he  winced 
under  it  ;  was  not  ready  to  lay  himself  open 
to  a  repetition  of  it ;  and  never  after  let  him- 
self go  on  at  length  in  quite  the  same  unre- 
strained vein. 

The  Knight  of  Crwynne,  Tlie  G' Bonoghue^  and 
The  Martins  of  Cro'  Ma^^tin^  the  books,  after 
Hinton^  selected  as  representative  of  Lever's 
work  upon  Irish  materials,  are  far  more  reliable 
as  novels  of  manners  than  the  earlier  stories. 
The  coloring  is  lowered  to  the  tone  of  real  life, 
and  things  go  on  in  these  stories  much  as  they 
do  in  the  real  world.      The  Knight  of  Givynne^ 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  201 

for  instance,  is  a  close  transcript  of  the  ways 
and  means  adopted  by  the  English  govern- 
ment in  bribing  the  Irish  members  to  vote 
their  own  Parliament  out  of  existence  ;  and 
The  Martins  of  Cro  Martin  is  a  true  enough 
picture  of  the  courses  by  which  the  fatuous 
pride  and  obstinacy  of  the  gentry  alienated  the 
peasantry  from  them,  and  of  the  rude  manner 
in  which  the  gentry  were  shaken  out  of  the 
dream  that  they  ruled  by  divine  right.  Be- 
sides the  tendency  toward  seriousness  in  the 
outlook  upon  life,  and  the  greater  faithfulness 
to  reality,  the  stories  after  Hinton  show  a  change 
in  the  jjersonnel  of  the  novels.  Grave,  lov- 
able, attractive,  thoughtful  people,  as  well  as 
the  w^himsical  and  extravagant,  appear  in  the 
stories.  A  growing  attention  to  the  mechanism 
of  the  novelist's  art  is  observable  also,  though 
unhappily  the  heyday  of  the  author's  imagina- 
tive force  was  past  before  he  began  to  attend 
to  it.  These  later  stories  have  plots,  too  ;  and 
their  style,  as  distinguished  from  the  style  of 
the  earlier  stories,  is  that  of  an  author  who 
takes  some  thought  of  how,  as  well  as  of  what, 
he  writes. 

As    a    military    novelist    Lever's    strongest 


292  IRISH   LIFE   IN   lUISH   FICTION 

claims  to  a  foremost  place  are  based  upon  por- 
tions of  O^Malley  and  Hinton^  and  upon  Tom 
Burke.  In  the  first  two  O'Malley  and  Hin- 
ton  carry  their  Irish  manners  into  a  Pen- 
insular campaign.  In  the  intervals  between 
battles  and  the  leading  of  forlorn  hopes,  the 
gormandizing,  drinking,  duelling,  dancing,  and 
practical  joking  go  on  in  the  same  old  way. 
Tom  Burke  has  plenty  of  desperate  fighting,  but 
without  the  frolic  and  genteel  rowdj^ism.  In 
the  story  of  military  life,  as  in  the  rollicking 
novel.  Maxwell  led  the  way  for  Lever.  But 
Lever's  pictures  of  military  life  in  the  barrack, 
in  the  camp,  and  in  the  battle-field  surpassed 
and  superseded  those  of  his  forerunner. 

In  English  literature  Lever  takes  his  place 
among  the  secondary  novelists  of  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  Among  the  Irish  novel- 
ists he  is  the  most  complete  representative  of  the 
Anglo-Irish  spirit,  at  least  of  a  phase  of  it.  His 
heroes  and  heroines  and  most  of  the  notable 
personages  of  his  story  are  Anglo-Irish.  His 
sympathies  with  otlier  types  of  character  and 
other  ways  of  life  were  imperfect.  His  imagina- 
tion never  enabled  him  to  see  with  the  eyes  of 
the  Catholic  gentry  or  of  the  peasantry.      He 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  298 

knew  only  one  class  of  peasants  well  —  servants 
and  retainers,  and  he  only  knew  them  on  the 
side  they  turned  out  to  their  masters.  Most  of 
his  peasants  are  more  than  half  stage  Irishmen. 
Lever  loved  best  to  depict  the  kind  of  gentry 
of  which  the  Encumbered  Estates  Act  cleared 
the  land,  men  who,  like  himself,  were  childish  in 
their  demand  for  lifelong  amusement,  and  made 
a  virtue  of  ruinous  follies.  Endless  sociability, 
showers  of  wit,  hilarity,  and  high  tides  of  wine 
went  to  the  make-up  of  his  ideal  world.  His 
philosophy  of  life  was  thin,  and  a  correct  criti- 
cal estimate  of  Lever's  literary  standing  under- 
lies the  remark  of  Maginn  :  — 

"  We  had  rather  borrow  money  to  drink 
with  the  author  of  Charles  O'Malley^  than  get 
drunk  at  the  costliest  exjDense  of  any  other 
scribbler  in  the  light  brigade  of  flimsy  litera- 
ture." 1 

But  after  all  is  said.  Lever  has  written  books 
that  are  clean,  and  fresh,  and  gay.  In  them  he 
has  raised  a  monument  to  the  joys  to  be  had 
from  fun  and  good  company,  food,  drink,  and 
physical  well-being.  His  work,  as  a  whole, 
and  his  life  reveal  an  upright,  hearty,  high- 
1  Fraser^s  Magazine,  October,  1840,  p.  330. 


294  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

spirited,  aimless,  careless,  generous  nature,  and 
the  contact  with  it  is  both  a  pleasure  and  a 
refreshment. 

Thomas  Crofton  Croker,  by  a  tendency  to 
humorize  whatever  he  touches,  belongs  to  the 
family  of  Maxwell  and  Lever.  He  does  not 
take  his  fairies,  goblins,  and  elves  seriously.  In 
his  patronizing  attitude  toward  them,  in  his 
vein  of  romantic  feeling  which  just  misses 
the  genuine  touch  of  awe,  he  is  a  sceptical  out- 
sider, not  one  of  those  from  whose  imagina- 
tions the  fairies  sprang,  nor  one  in  complete 
sympathy  with  them.  In  telling  his  legends  and 
tales,  Croker  was  faithful  to  the  simple  form  in 
which  they  were  told  to  him.  Hence  their  value 
from  the  point  of  view  of  folk-lore.  The  copious 
notes,  with  the  explanatory  matter  and  compari- 
sons of  the  Irish  tales  with  those  of  other  coun- 
tries, add  materially  to  the  interest  of  the  book. 
The  brogue,  which  has  even  in  print  a  mellifluous 
quality,  and  can  be  rendered  with  so  large  a 
measure  of  success  on  paper,  is  seldom  used, 
and  is  missed.  Though  Croker  almost  entirely 
dispenses  with  the  brogue,  he  is  an  easy  master 
of  the  idioms  and  figurative  language  of  the 
people.     But  faithful  as  he  is  to  his  originals 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  295 

in  form  and  idiom,  his  stories  have  often  an 
artificiality  of  treatment  entirely  out  of  keeping 
with  the  primitive  simplicity  of  his  matter. 
It  is  a  shock,  for  example,  to  be  informed  that 
what  old  John  Mulligan^  thought  fairies  are 
after  all  only  a  clump  of  mushrooms  ;  or  that 
Paddy  2  finds  his  dancing  fairies  in  red  caps 
and  green  jackets  to  be  nothing  but  the  green 
leaves  and  red  bunches  of  haws  waving  and 
shaking  in  the  moonlight ;  or  to  be  told  that 
every  other  tale  has  its  origin  in  a  drunken 
fancy  —  that  the  narrator  had  taken  '' just  07ie 
drop  too  much,"  or  that  he  woke  with  the 
bottle  empty  beside  him.  A  like  objection  on 
the  score  of  artificiality  might  be  made  to  the 
quotations  from  the  English  poets  which  are  in- 
troduced in  descriptive  passages.  But  after  all 
deductions  are  made,  the  Fairy  Legends  are 
charming,  and  at  their  best  simply  exquisite. 
Even  those  whom  fairy  tales  do  not  attract  can- 
not fail  to  enjoy  the  Irish  human  nature  that 
gives  substance  to  the  spirit-world,  and  the 
pictures  of  manners,  fascinating  from  the  sheer 
skill  of  imitation. 

1  Fairy  Legends,  "  Fairies  or  no  Fairies." 
^Ibid.,  ''The  Harvest  Diuner." 


296  IRISH  LIFE    IN   IRISH   FICTION 

The  first  work  of  Samuel  Lover,  Legends 
and  Stories  of  Ireland^  is,  except  for  the  inser- 
tion of  tales  of  everyday  life,  very  like  Croker's 
Fairy  Legends  and  Traditions^  and  was  probably 
suggested  by  the  latter  book.  In  distinction  from 
Croker,  Lover  wrote  always  in  the  idioms  and 
brogue  of  the  peasant,  of  which  he  was  a 
thorough  master,  and  upon  which  he  relied 
largely  for  effect.  In  the  Legends  and  Stories 
the  distinctive  qualities  of  Lover's  fiction  —  deli- 
cate humor  and  tenderness  in  a  mist  of  poetic 
sentiment  —  first  make  their  appearance.  All 
these  qualities  are  in  evidence  in  his  first  novel, 
Bory  O'More,  Here  Lover  makes  the  most  ef- 
fective use  of  the  three  elements  of  peasant  life 
of  which  he  had  an  easy,  if  superficial  command 
—  rustic  pleasantry,  rustic  love,  and  domestic 
affection.  Rory  O'More  had  clearly  the  pur- 
pose of  removing  the  predisposition  of  English- 
men to  look  upon  the  Irish  peasant  as  a  mass 
of  savage  turbulence  and  coarseness.  The 
renovation  went  a  step  too  far.  There  is  too 
much  averting  of  the  gaze  from  the  rougher 
and  homelier  side  of  the  medal,  and  too  much 
emphasis  upon  surface  pleasantness  and  gayety. 
Unhappily  for  Lover,  he  is  best  known  by  his 


LITERARY  ESTIMATE  297 

Handy  Andy,  in  wliicli  the  tender  sentiment 
and  graceful  frolicking  humor  that  give  Rory 
OMore  its  charm  are  no  longer  pervasive. 
Lover  here  caters  to  the  taste  for  burlesque 
and  clownish  horse  play,  and  presents  a  type 
of  the  pure  stage  Irishman  of  the  buffoon 
variety.  To  keep  the  reader  on  the  broad  grin 
from  cover  to  cover,  not  to  present  a  real  peas- 
ant type,  is  clearly  the  aim  of  the  novel.  No 
self-respecting  peasant  can  like  this  clumsy 
distortion  of  his  nature;  and  the  reader  who 
wishes  to  meet  in  fiction  the  true  peasant  will 
put  the  book  impatiently  aside. 

In  point  of  style  Lover's  work  is  common- 
place. In  point  of  constructive  skill  it  has  a 
full  share  of  the  imperfection  that  belongs  to 
the  plots  of  most  of  the  Irish  novelists,  Sandy 
Andy  in  particular  being  no  more  than  a  col- 
lection of  more  or  less  droll  anecdotes.  As  a 
poet  Lover  is  far  less  than  Moore  ;  as  a  novel- 
ist far  less  than  Lever.  As  an  Irish  critic  has 
somewhere  said,  — "  The  difference  between 
Lever  and  Lover  is  just  the  difference  between 
good  whiskey  and  bad:  both  are  indigenous,  and 
therefore  characteristic,  but  let  us  be  judged  by 
our  best." 


298  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

William  Maginn,  tlie  uncompromising  Tory, 
animated  by  the  strongest  feelings  of  an 
Orangeman,  is  a  prime  example  of  the  wild 
Anglo-Irishman,  both  in  his  career  and  in  his 
stories,  which  present  only  roisterers  and  swag- 
gerers. He  had  natural  abilities  of  a  high 
order  —  a  brilliant  and  vigorous  intellect,  criti- 
cal acumen,  and  sound  sense ;  and  his  writings 
everywhere  give  evidence  of  genius  and  of  the 
wide  range  of  his  learning.  His  work  has  all 
the  drawbacks  incident  to,  if  not  inevitable 
in,  work  done,  as  his  was,  in  the  intervals  of 
carouse,  and  for  ephemeral  purposes.  It  has, 
too,  in  full  measure  the  peculiar  charm  that 
belongs  to  trifles  from  the  pen  of  brilliant  men 
of  learning  and  great  gifts.  It  has  also  the 
charm  of  a  distinctively  Irish  product  —  a  wit 
that  stops  at  nothing  and  always  takes  the 
unexpected  turn,  a  fantastic  humor,  and  wild 
gayety,  with  now  and  again  a  touch  of  pathos. 
The  Irish  bent  for  conviviality  is  everywhere 
in  his  work,  and  the  aroma  of  spirits  exhales 
from  every  page.  In  Boh  Burke's  Duel  with 
Emign  Brady ^  Maginn  has  written  a  tale  than 
which  no  "  rattling  Hibernian  tale "  rattles 
louder,  and  nowhere,  unless  it  be  in  Ferguson's 


I 


LITERARY  ESTIMATE  299 

Father  Tom  and  the  Pope,  is  the  Irish  fancy  in 
the  full  career  of  its  wildest  drolleries  to  be  seen 
to  better  advantage. 

The  earliest  of  the  Celtic  group  of  writers 
were  John  and  Michael  Banim.  The  two 
brothers  were  closely  associated  in  their  liter- 
ary work  and  mutually  indebted  for  criticism 
and  suggestion.  John,  the  younger,  had  the 
more  decided  talent.  He  was  guide  and 
counsellor  to  Michael,  and  it  was  he  who 
took  the  initiative  in  their  joint  literary 
enterprises. 

Of  John  Banim's  stories,  Peter  of  the  Castle 
and  The  Mayor  of  Wind  Gap,  it  need  only  be 
said  that,  relying  for  effect  partly  upon  roman- 
tic incident,  partly  upon  manners-painting  of 
both  peasant  and  gentle  life,  they  excel  in 
neither.  The  Last  Baron  of  Crana,  and  The 
Conformists,  the  former  a  semi-historical  novel, 
have  little  merit  besides  that  which  attaches  to 
them  as  illustrations,  in  the  way  of  moderately 
interesting  fiction,  of  the  working  of  the  penal 
laws.  John  Doe,  and  The  Noivlans,  by  John 
Banim,  Crohoore  of  the  Bill-Hook,  The  Croppy, 
and  Father  Connell,  by  Michael  Banim,  are  the 
tales  and  novels  that  best  represent  the  brothers 


300  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

as  novelists  of  peasant  life.  These  works  com- 
bine graphic  realistic  powers  with  a  gloomy 
and  unlovely  romantic  spirit  which  delights  in 
sensational  incident,  overstrained  excitement, 
and  fevered,  high-pitched  passion.  In  John 
Banim's  The  Nowlans  there  are  impressive  and 
powerful  scenes  which  neither  of  the  brothers 
has  equalled  elsewhere.  The  central  situa- 
tion is  grasped  and  presented  with  a  convincing 
reality,  and  is  doubtless,  in  the  perfervid  pas- 
sion of  the  young  hero  for  the  girl  above  him  in 
station,  in  part  the  story  of  the  author's  ill- 
regulated  and  unhappy  passion  for  the  love  of 
his  youth.  The  structure  of  the  story  is  lament- 
ably slovenly.  But  it  is  a  story  informed  with 
tenderness,  passion,  and  power.  With  these 
qualities  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  shaping 
hand  of  the  artist  was  wanting  to  express  them 
in  a  coherent  and  harmonious  form.  Father 
Connelly  written  by  Michael  Banim,  received 
additions  at  the  hands  of  John.  As  a  novel 
it  is  dull  ;  but  as  a  faithful  picture  of  a  Roman 
Catholic  priest  in  his  home,  and  in  his  relations 
with  his  flock,  not  without  interest. 

Michael  and   John  each  wrote  an   historical 
novel.     John    Banim's    The    Boyne    Water ^   the 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  801 

author's  most  elaborate  effort,  is  obviously  an 
imitation  of  Sir  Walter.  But  it  lacks  the 
magic  by  which  the  Wizard  of  the  North  con- 
jured the  past  into  a  life,  real,  at  least,  if  not 
quite  its  own.  The  author's  imagination  here 
proved  unequal  to  his  great  task,  and  the  book 
shows  throughout  the  stiffness  of  a  mechanical 
product  in  which  the  material  did  not  become 
plastic  to  the  touch.  Besides  this  radical  defect, 
the  political  discussions  brought  into  the  story 
clog  the  movement  of  the  narrative ;  and  the 
action  is  overlaid  and  obscured  by  masses  of 
dead  historical  detail,  and  ineffective,  irrelevant 
incident.  The  battle-pieces  of  the  story,  how- 
ever correct  from  the  military  point  of  view, 
lack  the  battle-rage  and  stirring  trumpet  note 
of  the  struggle  between  the  hosts  of  William 
and  James.  And  the  motives  that  spurred  the 
combatants  are  not  poured  through  the  story 
—  the  Protestants  burning  to  get  the  Catholics 
under  their  feet,  and  the  Catholics  aflame  with 
loyalty  to  a  King  of  their  own  faith,  eager  to 
turn  the  tables  upon  their  oppressors,  and  get 
back  the  lands  torn  from  them  by  Cromwell. 
There  is  more  of  the  fighting  spirit  under  the 
frieze  coats  and  beneatli  the  brandished  shille- 


302  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

laghs  of  Carleton's  Battle  of  the  Factions  than  in 
all  the  clashing  hosts  of  The  Boyne  Water. 

Michael  Banim's  historical  novel,  The  Croppy^ 
was  made  from  material  close  at  hand  —  the 
Rebellion  of  '98  —  of  which  he  heard  from  the 
lips  of  men  still  living.  With  all  the  artistic 
failings  of  The  Boyne  Water  it  still  abounds  in 
scenes  imaginatively  handled  ;  it  catches  the 
temper  of  the  antagonists  in  the  struggle  ;  and 
leaves  the  reader  with  impressions  of  certain 
phases  of  the  Rebellion  that  have  in  them  some- 
thing like  the  vividness  of  a  personal  experi- 
ence. The  subject  of  The  Croppy  demanded 
less  of  its  author  than  was  demanded  by  the 
great  events  included  in  the  scope  of  Tlie  Boyne 
Water.  Though  the  latter  is  a  far  more  careful 
and  elaborate  performance,  the  former  has  a 
movement  and  spirit  that  make  it  the  more 
readable  of  the  two. 

In  the  style  of  these  two  writers,  and  in  the 
way  they  handle  their  material,  there  is  a  curi- 
ously close  resemblance.  In  John  Banim  there 
is  perhaps  a  more  marked  tendency,  resulting 
doubtless  from  his  physical  infirmities,  toward 
feverish  and  overstrained  passion,  but  on  the 
whole  it  would  be  impossible  to  distinguish  in 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  303 

the  work  of  the  brothers,  on  merely  internal  evi- 
dence, the  part  for  which  each  was  responsible. 

The  work  of  the  Banims  gives  no  indication 
of  the  possession  of  artistic  sense  in  its  authors. 
Their  style  is  remarkable  only  for  a  rude  and 
irresistible  eloquence  in  certain  passages  ;  for 
the  rest  it  is  uncouth  and  loose.  The  Banims 
were  most  successful  when  they  dealt  with 
peasant  life.  Their  pictures  of  high  life  were 
failures.  The  sensational  and  melodramatic 
element  was  strong  in  them.  They  tend  more 
than  any  other  of  the  Irish  novelists  to  a  pres- 
entation of  turbulent  and  unchastened  passion. 
They  lack  the  creative  power,  the  strong  feel- 
ing, the  rich  himior  of  Carleton,  and  the  vein 
of  delicate  sentiment  and  graceful  poetry  of 
Griffin. 

Gerald  Griffin,  who  took  his  cue  in  fiction 
from  the  Banims,  went  for  the  material  of  his 
novels  and  tales  chiefly  to  the  peasant  life  and 
middle-class  life  of  his  own  day  and  a  genera- 
tion earlier,  to  the  historic  past,  and  to  ancient 
Irish  legend.  Of  the  shorter  stories  of  Irish 
life  Card  Braiving.  The  Coiner,  Tfie  Aylmers  of 
Bally-Aylmer,  and  Tlie  Rivals  are  the  best. 
Griffin's  brief  remakings  of  Irish  legend,    and 


304  lEISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

his  brief  tales  of  the  supernatural,  despite  their 
grace,  lack  the  final  touch  of  excellence  that 
might  have  kept  them  still  current.  The  dust 
has  already  gathered  upon  them.  Besides  the 
short  stories  Griffin  has  written  three  novels. 
The  Collegians^  The  Invasion^  and  The  Duke  of 
Monmouth. 

The  Collegians,  upon  which  alone  his  fame  as 
a  novelist  now  rests,  represents  all  his  gifts  and 
graces.  Aubrey  de  Vere,  Charles  Gavan  Duffy, 
and  Justin  McCarthy  have  each  expressed  the 
opinion  that  it  is  the  best  Irish  novel.  In  some 
aspects  this  is  certainly  true.  No  other  novel 
has  made  so  complete  a  synthesis  of  Irish 
society.  No  other  novel  has  presented  faith- 
fully and  effectively  so  many  phases  of  Irish 
life.  It  presents  life  in  the  cabin  ;  the  well- 
ordered,  prudent,  busy,  middle-class  life  (so 
seldom  represented  in  Irish  novels)  of  the  pros- 
perous middleman  Daly  and  his  happy  family; 
and  the  life  of  the  "  big  house  "  at  Castle  Chute. 
In  fact  most  phases  of  Irish  life,  excepting  the 
political  and  the  highest  social  life,  are  intro- 
duced. And  the  typical  happenings  that  make 
up  the  daily  round  are  woven  into  the  story  — 
holiday  merrymakings,    marriages,  births   and 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  305 

deaths,  wakes  and  funerals,  hunts  and  races, 
dining,  dancing,  drinking,  and  duelling.  The 
book  has  a  wide  range  of  characters  to  corre- 
spond with  the  broad  pictures  of  Irish  life. 
There  are  humble  characters  like  the  gentle 
heroine  Eily,  and  at  the  other  remove  Fighting 
Poll  Naughten  —  "a  terrible  'oman  she  was, 
comin'  again'  a  man  with  her  stockin'  off,  an' 
a  stone  in  the  foot  of  it ;  "  or  characters  like 
the  genial  Lowry  Looby,  and,  contrasting  with 
him,  the  dangerous  humpback  Danny  Mann. 
There  is  the  same  variety  among  the  characters 
of  a  higher  social  scale,  at  the  one  extreme 
Father  Edward,  the  kind,  charitable  parish 
priest,  and  at  the  other  groups  of  tumultuous, 
uproarious  country  gentlemen  like  Fireball 
Craigh,  the  notorious  duellist,  former  Pinkin- 
dindie,  and  member  of  the  Hell-Fire  Club. 

The  Collegians  is  not  merely  the  most  com- 
prehensive picture  of  Irish  life.  There  is 
more  art  in  the  structure  of  the  story  than 
there  is  in  any  other  of  these  novels.  Its 
theme  is  not  a  new  one.  Hardress  Cregan, 
a  young  gentleman  just  returned  from  college 
to  his  home  on  the  Shannon,  meets,  while 
on  a  cruise  down  the  river,  a  humble  beauty, 


806  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

Eily  O'Connor,  the  flower  of  her  neighborhood, 
as  lovely  and  engaging  as  she  is  pure  and 
good.  He  runs  away  with  her,  marries  her 
secretly,  and  for  reasons  of  his  own  keeps  her 
concealed  in  a  peasant's  cabin,  even  her  father 
being  ignorant  of  the  marriage  or  her  where- 
abouts. Hardress  is  scarcely  married  when 
his  love  for  his  wife  Eily  vanishes  like  a 
dream  before  a  new  passion  for  a  beauty  in 
his  own  station.  Eily's  simple  allurements,  the 
humble  manners  that  belonged  with  her  birth 
and  breeding,  the  brogue,  honey-sweet  as  it 
was,  became  repulsive  and  intolerable  to  him. 
A  hint  to  a  faithful  servant  that  he  would 
gladly  see  the  chain  that  binds  him  to  Eily 
broken,  even  by  violence,  is,  in  a  spirit  of  mis- 
taken devotion,  carried  out.  Eily  is  murdered 
by  the  servant.  The  guilt  is  brought  home  to 
Hardress.  He  is  sentenced  to  transportation, 
and  dies  on  the  convict  ship. 

This  story  is  enacted  before  an  elaborate 
and  detailed  background,  but  peither  the  back- 
ground, the  high  coloring  of  particular  scenes, 
the  variety  of  incidents,  nor  the  crowd  of 
characters  is  permitted  to  withdraw  the 
attention  from  the   leading  persons,  or  to  ob- 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  307 

scure  the  main  movement  of  the  story.  The 
talent  that  made  the  author's  Grisippus  a  success 
upon  the  London  stage  is  felt  all  through  the 
narrative.  The  scene  in  which  the  company 
of  hunters,  of  whom  the  hero  is  one,  comes  upon 
the  body  of  the  murdered  Eily,  is  a  startling 
dramatic  climax,  and  is  only  one  of  a  number 
of  such  striking  moments.  Minor  climaxes  all 
through  make  the  narrative  admirably  lively, 
and  keep  the  interest  tense.  It  was  this  dra- 
matic quality  in  the  novel  that  led  to  its  dram- 
atization in  the  popular  play  of  I7ie  Colleen 
Bawn,  which,  unhappily,  magnified  all  the 
defects  of  its  original,  and  allowed  its  distinc- 
tive virtues  to  escape. 

This  novel  is  enriched,  too,  by  minor  contri- 
butions in  the  author's  best  vein.  There  are 
bits  of  manners-painting  done  with  delicacy  or 
spirit  as  the  case  requires ;  there  are  love- 
scenes  between  arch  maids  and  rustic  gallants, 
done  with  the  lightest  touch  and  in  the 
brightest,  gayest  moods;  there  are  drinking- 
bouts  and  fights ;  there  are  tales  of  tricksy 
goblins  and  of  ghosts,  half  comic,  half  hor- 
rible ;  and  folk-tales  in  which  the  wan- 
ton Celtic   fancy  is   ever  flying  off   into   new 


308  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

and  deliglitfully  unexpected  vagaries  and  ca- 
prices. 

The  Collegians  seems  less  commendable  on 
the  score  of  depth  and  truth  of  characteriza- 
tion, than  in  point  of  comprehensiveness  of 
subject,  art  in  construction,  and  excellence  in 
the  detail  work  of  the  composition.  The 
minor  characters  live,  but  are  not  known 
intimately.  Of  the  characters  who  play  im- 
portant roles,  all  are  lay-figures  with  the 
exception  of  the  hero,  Hardress  Cregan,  the 
humpback  Danny,  and  Eily  the  heroine. 

Hardress  Cregan  has  not  the  elevation  of 
character  that  belongs  to  the  tragic  hero.  He 
has  not  the  general  nobility,  the  strong  tides  of 
feeling  that  make  disaster  tragically  impres- 
sive. The  true  tragic  note  is  not  within  the 
compass  of  the  hero,  and  the  novel  on  the 
whole  is  pathetic  or  melodramatic,  not  tragic. 
Hardress's  passionate  whim  for  Eily,  blown 
away  by  the  first  adverse  wind,  is  a  slight 
thing.  The  love  for  Anne  Chute  that  dis- 
places his  love  for  Eily  is  a  fevered  melodra- 
matic emotion  scarcely  worth  the  name  of 
passion,  more  smoke  than  flame  for  all  the 
sound  and  fury  witli  which  it  is  voiced.     And, 


LITERARY  ESTIMATE  309 

what  is  quite  fatal  to  the  pretensions  of  a  tragic 
hero,  Hardress  earns  and  gets  the  hearty  con- 
tempt of  the  reader,  which  changes  to  some- 
thing more  like  loathing  when  he  breaks  the 
heart  of  his  bride  with  the  brutal  confession 
that  he  hates  her  and  all  her  endearments,  and 
when  he  hints  to  his  servant  the  murderous 
plot  against  her  life.  So  far  as  Hardress  is 
concerned,  the  reader  will  agree  with  the 
author's  remark  upon  his  hero,  made  in  a  let- 
ter to  his  brother  —  ''he  deserves  hanging  as 
richly  as  any  young  man  from  this  to  liimself/' 
If  the  hero  of  The  Collegians  is  melodramatic 
and  stagey,  the  character  of  Eily  is  presented 
with  a  simple  truth  of  portraiture  untouched 
by  such  faults.  The  scenes  in  the  lonely  cabin 
where  Eily  went  after  sacrificing  her  peace  and 
the  peace  of  her  father's  old  age  to  her  love  for 
Hardress,  and  where  she  was  to  remain  in  hid- 
ing until  he  should  be  ready  to  claim  her  as  his 
wife  before  the  world,  are  scenes  of  the  deepest 
and  most  appealing  pathos.  Eily,  in  her  weak- 
ness and  dependence,  despite  the  passive  cour- 
age to  endure,  is  not  of  the  heroic  fibre  that 
awakens  admiration.  But  when,  after  Har- 
dress's  cruel  confession  that  his  love  for  her  is 


310  IRISH   LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

dead  and  that  lie  hates  the  ties  that  bind  him, 
she  stands  like  a  helpless  thing  at  bay,  her  sad 
case  draws  deep  upon  the  pity  and  sympathy  of 
the  reader.  That  scene  is  a  stroke  of  genius 
memorable  as  a  poignantly  felt  and  faithfully 
rendered  situation. 

Danny  Mann,  the  humpback,  led,  by  the 
faithful  retainer's  unquestioning  devotion,  to 
an  atrocious  crime,  is  also  a  real  creation.  The 
creative  touch  is  felt  in  scenes  like  that  where 
Danny,  denounced  as  a  villain  by  his  master  for 
the  perpetration  of  the  crime  to  which  he  was 
incited  by  him,  throws  off  his  doglike  devo- 
tion, turns  like  a  wolf  upon  his  ungrateful  mas- 
ter, and  at  the  price  of  his  own  life  gives  him 
over  to  the  mercy  of  the  law. 

The  Collegians  is  undoubtedly  the  best  Irish 
novel  in  its  comprehensiveness  and  its  struc- 
ture, and  in  the  minor  embellishments  carefully 
subordinated  to  the  main  theme  ;  but  the  hero 
Hardress  has  the  noise,  the  rant,  and  all  the 
limitations  of  the  melodramatic  type  of  char- 
acter. In  point  of  characterization,  tliis  novel, 
representing  Griffin  at  his  best,  cannot  compare 
with  the  nobility,  elevation,  and  full-pulsed 
humanity  of  Carleton's  creations. 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  311 

The  Invasion  and  TJie  Dulcc  of  Monmouth  are 
historical  novels.  The  Invasion  is  a  story  of 
Irish  life  and  manners  in  the  eighth  century, 
before  the  repeated  incursions  of  the  Danes  had 
wasted  the  valleys  and  pillaged  the  towns, 
churches,  and  abbeys.  At  the  first  glance  the 
novel  has  something  of  a  forbidding  aspect 
from  the  innumerable  ancient  Irish  words, 
uncouth  and  unintelligible  to  the  uninitiated, 
which  the  author  has  sprinkled  with  a  liberal 
hand  over  the  pages.  Despite  the  Irish  terms, 
however,  the  story  lacks  authority  from  the 
antiquarian  standpoint.  Unhappily  narrative 
interest,  the  creative  touch  in  characterization, 
and  imaginative  reanimation  of  the  past,  which 
could  easily  override  minor  objections  to  the 
novel,  are  wanting.  The  Invasion  was  coldly 
received  on  its  first  appearance,  and  the  public 
feeling  toward  it  will  not  grow  warmer.  The 
Duke  of  Monmouth^  a  story  of  the  inva- 
sion of  England  by  the  ill-starred  Duke  of 
Monmouth,  has  no  place  among  novels  of  Irish 
life,  and  no  standing  among  historical  novels. 
Both  The  Invasion  and  The  Duke  of  Monmouth 
have  been  shelved  forever. 

Carleton's  work  is  of  very  uneven  excellence. 


812  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

His  genius  makes  its  presence  most  continuously 
felt  in  the  Traits  and  Stories^  Fardarougha^ 
TJie  Black  Prophet^  and  The  Emigrants  of 
Ahadarra.  From  these  tales  and  novels  his 
gifts  may  be  known  in  their  range  and  fulness. 
Though  in  most  of  the  rest  of  Carleton's  work 
the  inspiration  is  intermittent,  with  large  spaces 
of  commonplace  between  the  good  things,  his 
genius  often  wakens  to  moments  of  tragedy, 
of  pathos,  or  of  humor,  or  to  dramatic  situations 
that  keep  a  great  part  of  the  tales  and  novels 
well  above  the  dead  level  of  mediocrity.  Be- 
sides the  novels  and  tales  named  above  as 
representative  of  his  genius  at  its  best,  others 
are  notable  in  one  way  or  another.  Valentine 
MX%utchy  is  the  most  daring  picture  of  Irish 
country  life  ever  executed.  In  it  he  paints 
black,  but  paints  with  power,  a  bad  middleman, 
a  bad  magistrate.  Orange  lodges,  dissenting 
proselytizers,  and  proselytizers  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church.  In  the  Tithe  Proctor  he  at  once 
gives  a  vivid  picture  of,  and  assails  fiercely,  pop- 
ular movements  against,  the  landlords.  When 
the  Young  Irelanders  were  warring  upon  the 
sins  of  Old  Ireland,  Carleton  lent  a  hand  by 
writing    a    series    of   stories  for   Tlie  National 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  313 

Library^  including  Rocly  the  Rover ^  a  book  of 
absorbing  interest  in  laying  bare  the  working 
of  the  secret  societies  ;  Paddy-go-Easy^  a  home 
thrust  at  the  laziness,  slovenliness,  shiftlessness, 
and  squalor  of  the  peasants  ;  and  Art  Maguire, 
or  The  Broken  Pledge,  a  story  that  is  perhaps 
the  most  powerful  temperance  tract  ever 
written. 

Carleton  knew  and  understood  no  class  of 
society  but  that  in  which  he  was  born.  When, 
as  in  Ja7ie  Sinclair,  he  attempts  to  present 
middle-class  life,  or  when,  as  in  The  Squariders 
of  Castle  Squander,  he  attempts  to  present  the 
life  of  the  gentry,  he  fails.  But  as  a  novelist  of 
the  manners  of  the  peasantry,  Carleton's  place 
is  in  the  front  rank.  The  business  of  the  man- 
ners novel  is  to  introduce  the  reader  to  people 
whose  social  conditions  and  customs  are  strange, 
and  to  leave  him  as  much  at  home  under  new 
conditions  and  with  new  friends  as  though  in  his 
own  element.  Those  who  have  read  Carleton's 
books  will  not  be  likely  to  gainsay  the  assertion 
that,  considered  merely  as  a  novelist  of  the  man- 
ners of  the  peasantr}^,  he  has  achieved  a  measure 
of  success  greater  than  that  of  any  Scotch  or 
Encrlish  novelist  in  the   same   field.      Carleton 


314  IRISH  LIFE    IN   IRISH   FICTION 

had  by  nature  and  circumstances  the  endow- 
ment of  a  great  realist  —  he  was  keenly  obser- 
vant, had  a  wonderful  memory,  a  graphic  touch, 
and  a  knowledge  both  wide  and  detailed  of  his 
subject.  These  gifts  served  him  well  as  a  nov- 
elist of  manners.  Thomas  Davis,  in  a  brief 
comment  upon  a  collection  of  Carleton's  tales, 
states  concisely  the  value  of  his  fiction  as  a 
living  record  of  ways  of  life  and  social  types 
that  were  soon  to  disappear  from  the  face  of 
the  earth.      He  says  in  part :  — 

"The  Fairies  and  the  Banshees,  the  Poor 
Scholar,  and  The  Ribbonman,  The  Orange 
Lodge,  The  Illicit  Still,  and  the  Faction  Fight 
are  vanishing  into  history,  and  unless  this  gen- 
eration paints  them  no  other  Avill  know  what 
they  were.   .   .   . 

"  You  are  never  wearied  by  an  inventory 
of  wardrobes,  as  in  short  English  descrip- 
tive fictions  ;  yet  you  see  how  every  one  is 
dressed  ;  you  hear  the  honey  brogue  of  the 
maiden,  and  the  downy  voice  of  the  child  ; 
the  managed  accents  of  flattery  or  traffic,  the 
shrill  tones  of  woman's  fretting,  and  the 
troubled  gush  of  man's  anger.  The  moory 
upland  and  the  cornslopes,  the  glen  where  the 
rocks  jut  through  mantling  heather,  and  bright 
brooks  gurgle  amid  the  scented  banks  of  wild 
herbs ;    the   shivering    cabin,   and    the    rudel}"- 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  315 

lighted  farm-house  are  as  phiin  in  Carleton's 
pages  as  if  he  used  canvas  and  colours  with  a 
skill  varying  from  Wilson  and  Poussin  to 
Teniers  and  Wilkie.   .   .   . 

''  He  is  a  genuine  Senachie,  and  brings  you 
to  dance  and  to  wake,  to  wedding  and  chris- 
tening—  makes  you  romp  with  the  girls,  and 
race  with  the  boys  —  tremble  at  the  ghosts, 
and  frolic  with  the  fairies  of  the  whole  parish. 

"  Come  what  change  there  may  over  Ireland, 
in  these  '  Tales  and  Sketches '  the  peasantry 
of  the  past  hundred  years  can  be  forever  lived 
with."i 

Among  other  gifts  Carleton  had  in  a  very 
high  degree  one  prime  constituent  of  genius  — 
sensibility,  sound  and  strong,  quick  and  many- 
sided.  The  deepest  emotions  of  this  people 
move  in  him,  and  are  poured  through  his  work. 
In  story  after  story  he  strikes  the  chords  of  the 
simple,  primary,  elemental  passions  and  affec- 
tions, and  makes  them  answer  in  notes  of  reso- 
nant power,  and  in  the  tones  and  accent  of  his 
race.  People  who  are  tired  of  thin,  second- 
hand feeling,  and  sentimental  hair-splitting, 
will  rejoice  in  the  emotional  depth  and  fulness 
of  Carleton's  works,  where  passions  are  as 
strong  as  the  tides. 

^Literary  and  Historical  Essays,  pp.  209-210. 


316  IRISH   LIFE   IN   IRISH   FICTION 

Carleton  is,  without  question,  the  creative 
genius  among  the  Irish  novelists.  No  other  of 
them  can  show  such  a  company  of  men  and 
women  so  varied  in  character,  so  broadly  typical, 
so  lifelike.  And  his  creations  have  a  very  real 
interest  on  different  sides,  whether  considered 
as  moral  types,  as  social  types,  or  as  embodi- 
ments of  the  Celtic  Irish  spirit.  Few  novelists, 
among  many  greater  than  he,  have  anything  to 
put  beside  his  gallery  of  women,  so  clear-cut  in 
their  moral  and  national  traits.  He  is  the 
greatest  portrayer  of  Irish  womanhood  in  its 
sanctity  and  moral  beauty,  and  peculiarly 
happy  in  his  pictures  of  Irish  maidenhood. 
The  soft  charm  of  the  peasant  girls  whom  lie 
knew  and  loved  in  his  youth,  and  whom  he 
paints  in  the  spirit  of  a  lover  and  with  a  master 
hand,  steals  over  the  author's  heart  as  he  tells 
of  them,  and  brings  the  reader  under  their 
spell.  His  peasant  girls  stand  apart  by  them- 
selves, lovely  as  moral  types  and  unmistakably 
national.  Ardent  and  intense  in  their  feelings, 
they  are  pure  without  a  suggestion  of  coldness. 
Their  purity  owes  nothing  to  prudence,  conven- 
tion, nor  even  to  duty ;  they  turn  to  virtue 
instinctively  as  ilowers  to  the  sun.     Their  sen- 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  317 

timent  is  always  delicate,  witli  never  a  touch  of 
grossness.  And  in  sharp  relief  against  their 
gentleness  and  tenderness  a  courageous  spiritu- 
ality stands  out,  displaying  itself,  among  many 
other  ways,  in  a  fine  disdain  for  material  con- 
siderations in  the  placing  of  their  affections. 
With  these  traits  there  go,  to  complete  these 
unique  creations,  a  sunny  playfulness,  an  arch 
pleasantry,  and  a  tripping  humor,  all  toned  and 
mellowed  by  a  shade  of  melancholy.  The  old 
women  are  as  notable  in  their  way  as  the 
young.  Full-heartedness  in  joy  or  grief  be- 
longs to  them,  deepening  their  sorrows,  en- 
riching their  happiness,  lending  unction  to 
kind  deeds,  and  warmth  to  their  cheery, 
hospitable  welcomes.  Their  affections,  finding 
utterance  in  speech  crowded  with  terms  of 
endearment,  flow  full  and  free,  and  prompt 
to  every  call.  Irish  literature  in  English  has 
so  far  left  no  nobler  legacy  than  the  women  of 
Carleton's  creation. 

The  young  men,  too,  are  clear-cut,  both  as 
national  and  moral  types,  distinguished  par- 
ticularly by  their  delicacy  of  sentiment  and 
the  pure  and  generous  tone  of  their  feelings. 
In   their   love   the    moral    and    the    emotional 


318  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

are  never  separated,  and  passion  awakens 
only  where  physical  charm  and  moral  beauty 
combine.  The  old  men  are  fit  companions  for 
the  old  women,  carrying  into  old  age  the  rich 
humor,  the  warm  hearts,  the  generous  impulses, 
and  April  moods  of  youth. 

As  one  recalls  and  compares  Carleton's  crea- 
tions, the  variety  and  the  diversity  of  the  types 
are  astonishing.  What  a  range  of  character 
from  the  noble  women,  Mave  Sullivan  and 
Honor  O'Donovan,  to  the  stirring,  capable 
EUish  Connell,  and  from  her  to  the  wife  of  the 
Black  Prophet;  or  from  the  rustic  Romeo, 
Connor  O'Donovan,  to  the  genial  toper  and 
speculator  Ned  M'Keown,  and  from  him  again 
to  the  villain  Bartle  Flanagan,  or  the  miser 
Darby  Skinadre. 

As  a  humorist,  Carleton  is  splendidly  and 
richly  gifted.  He  is  the  best  exponent  of  the 
Celtic  Irish  genius  for  humor  of  every  variety. 
He  is  equally  master  of  that  which  blends  with 
tears,  of  the  gentle  and  playful,  the  subtle  and 
tricksy,  the  exuberant,  the  wild,  and  the 
fierce.  Humor  as  found  in  Carleton  is  free 
from  conscious  smartness,  clumsiness,  or  mal- 
ice.    It   is   good-natured,   and   will    claim   no 


LITERARY   ESTIALA.TE  319 

relationship  with  the  breed  of  wit  that  rejoices 
in  the  mortification  of  a  victim  ;  it  springs 
generally  from  a  desire  to  share  with  another 
the  delightful  perception  of  some  ridiculous 
incongruity.  It  is  not  hollow,  nor  flippant,  nor 
bitter,  but  rich,  subtle,  searching,  with  a  tonic 
quality  to  it  that  clears  and  sweetens  the 
spirits.  It  can  become  tender  and  wistful, 
hovering  on  the  border-land  between  tears  and 
laughter,  and  leaving  a  sun-shower  mood  — 
laughter  touched  with  tears,  and  tears  mixed 
with  laughter. 

A  love  of  nature  makes  itself  felt  all  through 
Carleton.  The  feeling  is  direct,  simple,  and 
strong.  It  shows  itself  in  no  rapt  contempla- 
tion or  minute  observation,  and  carries  with 
it  no  particular  mysticism  and  no  fine-spun 
nature-theories.  Carleton  looks  upon  the  face 
of  nature  with  a  fulness  of  delight.  The  key  of 
his  feeling  is  precisely  struck  in  a  comment 
of  his  own  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  autobiog- 
raphy, where  he  says,  "  I  enjoyed  great  happi- 
ness from  the  character  of  the  landscape." 
It  is  a  completely  humanized  landscape  that 
appeals  to  him.  He  loves  the  cultivated  fields, 
meadows    where    homesteads    nestle,    familiar 


320  IRISH  LIFE   IN   IRISH  FICTION 

woods,  mountains  all  have  climbed,  brooks  to 
whose  murmurs  all  have  listened.  He  loves 
nature  for  its  shady  haunts,  its  grateful 
hues,  sweet  breezes,  and  cool  springs  and 
streams. 

Carleton's  genius  was  a  purely  native  growth 
that  knew  no  graft  of  culture.  It  drew  its 
strength  from  roots  struck  deep  in  the  native 
soil,  and  grew  to  greatness  under  home  skies. 
Besides  its  limitations  as  a  purely  native  prod- 
uct, it  had  the  limitations,  never  outgrown 
nor  overcome,  of  the  class  from  which  its  pos- 
sessor sprang.  He  was  blood  and  bone  of  the 
peasants  of  whom  he  wrote,  and  like  them  un- 
trained mentally,  morally,  and  emotionally.  All 
that  characterized  the  peasant  was  reflected  in 
his  work  —  the  imperfect  education,  the  easily 
roused  passions,  the  intense  affections,  the  preju- 
dices, the  strength,  tlie  weakness,  and  the  beset- 
ting sins.  Though  endowed  with  the  finest, 
deepest  feeling,  he  seems  incapable  of  thought 
and  reason,  and  is  only  himself  under  the  in- 
spiration of  strong  impulse.  When  he  pauses 
for  a  reflection  or  a  generalization  he  is  sure  to 
shoot  wide  of  the  mark,  and  to  do  so  with  a 
complacent,  naive   unconsciousness   of   having 


LITERARY   ESTIMATE  321 

missed  tliat  leaves  the  reader  gasping  in 
amused  astonishment. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  Carleton  hicked  the 
artistic  training  that  might  have  enabled  him 
to  make  the  best  of  his  splendid  gifts  as  a 
story-teller.  As  it  is,  character,  sentiment, 
humor,  pathos,  and  vivid  manners-painting  are 
what  tell  in  his  work,  not  construction  or 
style.  There  is  little  economy  in  his  plots; 
little  discrimination  in  the  choice  of  incident ; 
and  there  is  constant  repetition  that  scores  no 
artistic  point.  Perspective,  both  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  incidents  in  the  plot,  and  in  the  emo- 
tional movement,  is  wanting.  Things  do  not 
relate  themselves  properly  to  a  central  theme. 
Carleton  misses  all  the  effectiveness  that  comes 
from  attention  to  these  and  such  like  matters. 
With  the  resources  of  the  technique  of  the  art 
in  his  service  he  might  have  left  records  of  his 
genius,  in  more  compact,  telling,  and  beautiful 
forms,  that  would  have  kept  his  books  still  cur- 
rent the  world  over. 

Carleton  is  accurate  as  a  phonograph  in  the 
use  of  dialect ;  and  he  is  the  great  master  of 
the  idioms  of  the  people,  of  the  picturesque 
form  and  color  of  their  speech,  and  of  all  the 


322  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

turns  and  twists  they  gave  the  English  lan- 
guage in  the  attempt  to  make  that  obstinate 
medium  express  their  thoughts  and  feelings 
after  their  own  fashion.  Their  language  was 
his  native  tongue ;  he  took  naturally  to  their 
lively  way  of  expressing  themselves  by  rhe- 
torical questions  and  sentences  that  keep  the 
meaning  in  suspense.  He  had  an  astonishing 
command  of  the  neat  turns  of  phrase,  the 
quick,  apt  similes,  and  the  quaint  forms  of 
speech  to  be  caught  flying  in  every  village. 
The  peasant  idioms,  moulded  as  they  are  from 
the  English  speech  by  the  race  spirit,  are  more 
than  quaint  and  amusing ;  they  assist  in  char- 
acterization, and  Carleton  knew  how,  in  using 
them,  to  add  many  a  subtle  touch  to  his  crea- 
tions. Carleton  made  the  effort  in  his  writing 
to  purge  his  vocabulary  of  terms  peculiarly 
local  and  northern,  and  those  who  know  assert 
that  he  has  succeeded,  and  in  vocabulary  and 
idiom  uses  a  language  that  passes  current  the 
country  over,  and  makes  a  perfect  record  of  the 
accent  of  old  Ireland. 

Carleton's  style  in  its  lack  of  precision  and 
correctness  is  a  fair  mark  for  criticism  ;  but  it 
is  a  living,  flexible  style,  and  gives  easy,  flowing 


LITERARY  ESTIMATE  323 

expression  to  the  narrative.  On  the  whole  it 
is  unobtrusive,  and  attracts  little  attention  to 
itself.  At  times,  however,  especially  where 
dialect  is  used,  it  takes  on  very  positive  merits. 
In  humorous  passages  it  is  deliciously  crisp  ; 
in  the  great  moments  of  the  stories  it  becomes 
solemn  in  its  simple  force ;  and  under  the  rush 
of  strong  emotion,  in  expressions  of  affection, 
or  in  threats,  maledictions,  and  prayers,  it 
shows  the  Celtic  coloring  in  the  use  of  beauti- 
ful figures  and  impassioned  turns  of  speech. 

As  a  novelist,  Carleton  was  splendidly  en- 
dowed. He  had  the  gifts  of  a  great  realist ; 
he  had  the  creative  faculty  ;  a  sensibility 
strong  and  many-sided ;  and  a  spring  that 
never  failed  of  the  rarest,  choicest  humor. 
Despite  limitations  on  the  side  of  imperfect 
education  and  artistic  training,  he  surpasses 
all  his  fellows  in  stature,  the  one  towering 
figure  among  them,  impressive  in  his  rough- 
hewn  grandeur. 

Looking  back  over  these  novels  the  thought 
will  occur  that  one  phase  of  Irish  life  has  been 
slighted,  the  life  of  the  well-behaved,  orderly 
middle  class.  One  will  be  struck  also  by  a 
very  notable  characteristic  —  the  moral  purity 


324  IRISH  LIFE   IN  IRISH  FICTION 

that  belongs  to  each  and  every  one  of  the 
novelists  of  both  the  peasantry  and  the  gentry. 
And  the  reading  of  these  novels  cannot  fail  to 
leave  a  sense  of  regret  at  the  imperfect  educa- 
tion and  imperfect  art  that  stood,  it  would 
seem,  between  the  most  gifted  of  the  Irish 
novelists  and  the  achievement  within  their 
reach.  Even  the  greatest  of  them  wrote  in  a 
language  whose  literature  he  had  not  suffi- 
ciently assimilated  to  know  the  true  value  of 
words.  But  this  defective  style  and  imperfect 
artistic  sense  and  training  will  appear  but 
natural  when  it  is  remembered  that  Irish  lit- 
erature in  English  was,  so  far  as  imaginative 
work  is  concerned,  entirely  a  thing  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  In  fact,  until  the  events 
of  1782  gave  Dublin  importance,  there  was  no 
centre  for  a  literature  to  gather  round.  Among 
English  Protestants  in  Ireland,  great  men  of 
letters  did  indeed  arise  Avho  showed  in  their 
work  something  of  the  Irish  temperament ; 
but  they  handled  English  themes,  and  strictly 
according  to  English  literary  tradition. 

These  novels  leave  memories  of  a  quaint  and 
curious  society,  and  of  distinctive  social  types  ; 
they   do   justice   to   the   fine   qualities   of   the 


LITERARY  ESTIMATE  325 

frank  and  fearless  old  gentry  —  their  liigli 
spirit,  wit,  geniality,  and  generosity  ;  and  they 
present  a  peasantry  clever,  courteous,  kindly, 
and  dowered  with  a  wealth  of  fine  feeling's. 

Since  the  work  of  the  novelists  here  treated 
was  finished,  a  new  school  has  arisen,  different 
from  Miss  Edgeworth  in  being  strongly  colored 
with  Celtic  romance  ;  different  from  Lever  in 
aiming  at  a  faithful,  vital,  and  sincere  portrai- 
ture of  the  Irish  people ;  different  from  Carle- 
ton  in  having  a  high  standard  of  style  and  of 
art  in  general ;  and  different  from  all  the  nov- 
elists included  within  the  present  survey  by 
the  possession  of  a  wider  knowledge  and  a  finer 
culture.  And  now  in  Ireland  new  forces  are 
astir  in  the  realm  of  imaginative  literature  both 
in  prose  and  verse. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE 

A  list  of  the  more  important  stories  and  novels  of  Irish  life 
by  Irish  writers  lohose  literary  activity  began  before  1850.  First 
editions  are  given  immediately  after  the  titles.  Editions  starred 
are  those  referred  to  in  the  text  or  notes. 

Banim,  John.  Tales  by  the  O'Hara  Family.  Second 
Series.  London,  1826.  This  series  contains  "  The 
Nowlans  "  and  "  Peter  of  the  Castle." 

.     The  Boyne  Water.     London,  1826. 

.     The  Anglo-Irish.     London,  1828. 

.  The  Denounced.  London,  1829.  This  book  con- 
tains "  The  Last  Baron  of  Crana "  and  ''  The 
Conformists." 

Banim,  Michael.  Tales  by  the  O'Hara  Family.  Third 
Series.  London,  1828.  *Philadelphia,  1839.  This 
series  contains  only  "  The  Croppy." 

.     Tales  by  the  O'Hara  Family.     London,  1832.    This 

book  contains  "  The  Mayor  of  Wind  Gap "  and 
"Canvassing."  Though  published  as  one  of  the 
O'Hara  Tales,  "  Canvassing "  is  by  Miss  Harriet 
Letitia  Martin. 

.     The  Ghost  Hunter.     London,  1833. 

.     Father  Connell.     London,  1840. 

.     Clough  Fio7i,  Dublin  University  Magazine,  1852. 

.     Totvn  of  the  Cascades.     Loudon,  1864. 

327 


328  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

The  Banims,  John  and  Michael.     Tales  by  the  O'Hara 

Family.  First  Series.  London,  1825.  The  first 
series  contains  "  Crohoore  of  the  Bill  Hook,"  by 
Michael;  "John  Doe,"  by  John  (excepting  the 
first  chapter,  which  is  by  Michael)  ;  and  "  The 
Fetches,"  by  John. 

.     The  Bit  o'  Writin.     London,  1838.     All  the  stories 

in  this  volume  are  by  Michael,  excepting  "The 
Hare-Hound  and  the  Witch." 

Carleton,  William.  Traits  and  Stories  of  the  Irish 
Peasantry.  First  Series,  Dublin,  1830.  Second 
Series,  Dublin,  1833.  ^London  and  New  York. 
1896. 

.  Jane  Sinclair;  or,  the  Fawn  of  Springvale.  Pub- 
lished in  the  volume  with  "  Lha  Dhu,"  "  The  Dead 
Boxer,"  and  "  The  Clarionet."     Dublin,  1841. 

.     Fardarougha  the  Miser.     Dublin,  1839.     *London, 

Glasgow,  and  New  York,  no  date. 

.    Valentine  M'Clutchy,  the  L'ish  Agent,  or  Chronicles 

of  the  Castle  Cumber  Property.  Dublin,  1845. 
*New  York,  1881. 

.     Rody  the  Rover.     Dublin,  1845. 

.     Parra  Sastha,  or  the  History  of  Paddy  Go-Easy  and 

his  Wife  Nancy.     Dublin,  1845. 

.     The  Black  Prophet,  a  Tale  of  the  Famine.     Dublin 

University  Magazine,  1846.  Published  in  book 
form  in  Belfast,  1847.     *Ne\v  York,  no  date. 

.     Art  Maguire ;    or,   the    Broken   Pledge.      Dublin, 

1847. 

.     The  Emigrants  of  Ahadarra.     Belfast  and  London, 

1847.     *New  York,  1881. 

.     The  Tithe  Proctor.     Belfast,  1849. 

.     Willy  Reilly  and  his  dear  Colleen  Bawn.     London, 

1855. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  320 

Carleton,  William.  The  Squanders  of  Castle  Squan- 
der.    London,  1852. 

For  full  bibliography  of  Carleton,  see  D.  J.  O'Donoghue's 
The  Life  of  William  Carleton,  vol.  /,  pp.  Ivii-Lxiv. 

Croker,  Thomas  Crofton.  Fairy  Legends  and  Tradi- 
tions of  the  South  of  Ireland.  London,  1825.  An 
edition  containing  additional  stories  was  published 
in  London,  1828.     *London,  1875. 

.     Legends  of  the  Lakes :  or,  Sayings  and  Doings  at 

Killarney.     London,  1832. 

Croker,  Mrs.  Thomas  Croftox.  Barney  Mahoney. 
London,  1832. 

Edgeworth,  J^L\ria.  Castle  Raclrent.  London,  1800. 
*London  and  Xew  York,  1886. 

.     The  Absentee.     London,  1809. 

.     Ormond.     London,  1817. 

.     Ennui.     London,  1809. 

Fergusox,  Sir  Samuel.  Father  Tom  and  the  Pope. 
This  tale  appeared  first  in  Blackwood's  Magazine, 
1838,  and  was  subsequently  published  in  Tales  from 
Blackwood.     Edinburgh  and  London,  no  date. 

Grattax,  Thomas  Colley.  "  The  Priest  and  the  Garde- 
du-Corps  "  in  High-  Ways  and  By-  Ways  ;  or  Tales 
of  the  Roadside.     Second  Series.     *London,  1825. 

Griffix,  Gerald.  Holland  Tide;  or  Munster  Popular 
Tales.  London,  1827.  This  contained  '•  The  Ayl- 
mers  of  Bally- Aylraer,"  •'  The  Hand  and  the  Word," 
and  short  tales  and  legends. 

.     The  Collegians.    London,  1829.    *London,  no  date. 

.     Tales  of  the  Munster  Festivals.     A  second  series 

(Holland  Tide  being  the  first  series).  *London, 
1829.  This  contained  "  Card  Drawing,"  "  The  Half 
Sir,"  and  "  Suil  Dhuv ;  or  The  Coiner." 


330  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

Griffin,  Gerald.     Tales  of  the  Munster  Festivals.     A 

third  series.     London,  1832.     This  contains  "  The 

Rivals  "  and  "  Tracy's  Ambition." 

.     The  Invasion.     London,  1832. 

.     Tales  of  My  Neighborhood.     London,  1835.     This 

contains   "The    Barber    of    Bantry,"    and    other 

stories. 

.     The  Duke  of  Monmouth.     London,  1836. 

.     Talis  Quails ;  or  Tales  of  the  Jury-Room.     London, 

1842. 
.     The  Offering  of  Friendship.     London,  1854.     This 

appeared  first  serially  in  The  Christian  Apologist^ 

1830,  under  the  title  of  Tales  Illustrative  of  the  Five 

Senses. 
Hall,  Mrs.  Samuel  Carter  (Anna  Maria  Fielding). 

Sketches  of  Irish  Character.     London,  1829. 

.     Lights  and  Shadows  of  Irish  Life.     London,  1838. 

.     Stories  of  the  Irish  Peasantry.     London,  1840. 

.     The  Whitehoy.     London,  1845. 

Lever,  Charles.     The  Confessions  of  Hairy  Lorrequer, 

Dublin,  1839.     *Boston,  no  date. 
.     Charles    O'Malley,   Dublin,    1841.      *New   York, 

1897. 

.    Jack  Hinton.     Dublin,  1843.     *London,  no  date. 

.     The  O'Donoghue.     Dublin,  1845. 

.     St.  Patrick's  Eve.     London,  1845. 

.     The  Knight  of  Gwynne.     London,  1847. 

.     The  Confessions  of  Con  Cregan,  the  Irish  Gil  Bias. 

London,  1849. 

.     Roland  Cashel.     London,  1850. 

.     Maurice  Tierney :    The  Soldier  of  Fortune.     Lon- 
don, 1855. 
.     Sir    .Tasper    Caretc ;     his    Life    and    Experiences. 

London,  1855. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE  331 

Lever,  Charles.     The  Martins  of  Cro'  Martin.    London, 

1856. 

.     Davenport  Dunn.     London,  1859. 

.     Sir  Brook   Fosbrooke.     Edinburgh   and  London, 

1866. 

.     Lord  Kilgohhin;   a  Tale  of  Ireland  in  Our  Time. 

London,  1872. 

Lover,  Samuel.  Legends  and  Stories  of  Ireland.  Dublin, 
1831.  Legends  and  Stories  of  Ireland.  Second 
Series.     London,  1834. 

.     Rory  O'More.     London,  1837. 

.     Handy  Andy.     London,  1842. 

.     Treasure  Trove.     London,  1844. 

Maginx,  William.  Miscellanies :  Prose  and  Verse  (ed- 
ited by  William  Montagu).  London,  1885.  This 
contains  "  Bob  Burke's  Duel,"  "  The  Story  With- 
out A  Tail,"  and  other  Irish  stories  published  in 
the  magazines  between  1823  and  1842. 

Martin,  Miss  Harriet  Letitia.  "  Canvassing  "  (pub- 
lished as  one  of  Banim's  O'Hara  Tales) .  London, 
1832. 

Martin,  ]\iiss  Mary  Letitia.  Julia  Howard;  a  Ro- 
mance.   London, 1850. 

Maturix,  Charles  Robert.  The  Wild  Irish  Boy. 
London, 1808. 

.     The  Milesian  Chief.     London,  1812. 

.      Women ;    or,   Pour  et    Contre.      Edinburgh  and 

London,  1818. 

Maxwell,  William  Hamilton.  O'Hara  or  2798,  an 
Historical  Novel.     London,  1825. 

.     Wild  Sports  of  the  West.    London,  1834.    *London 

and  Xew  York,  no  date. 

.     The  Dark  Lady  of  Doona.     London,  1834. 

.     Stories  of  Waterloo.    London,  1834. 


332  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

Maxwell,  William  Hamilton.     Captain  Blake ;  or,  My 

Life.    London,  1835.     *London  and  New  York,  no 

date. 
.     The    Fortunes   of   Hector    O^Halloran.      London, 

1842,  1843. 

.     Captain  O' Sullivan.     London,  1846. 

.     Brian  O'Linn.     London,  1848. 

Morgan,  Lady  (Sydney  Owenson).      St.  Clair;  or  the 

Heiress  of  Desmond.     Dublin,  1801. 

.     The  Wild  Irish  Girl.     London,  1806. 

.     O'Donnell,    a    National     Tale.       London,    1814. 

*London,  1846. 

.     Florence  Macarthy.     London,  1816. 

.     The    O'Briens    and    O'Flahertys.      London,   1827. 

*London,  1856. 
Power,  Marguerite,   Countess  of   Blessington.      The 

Repealers;  or,  Grace  Cassidy.     London,  1833. 

A  list  of  biographical  and  other  works  that  have  been  espe- 
cially useful.  No  attempt  is  made  to  mention  the  obvious  his- 
tories, memoirs,  and  magazine  articles  that  have  been  consulted. 
Editions  starred  are  those  referred  to  in  the  text  or  notes. 

Banim  John,  The  Life  of.  By  P.  J.  Murray.  *New 
York,  1869. 

Carleton,  William,  The  Life  of.  By  D.  J.  O'Donoghue. 
*London,  1896. 

Croker,  Thomas  Crofton,  A  Memoir  of  By  T.  F.  D.  Croker. 
This  is  prefixed  to  Fairy  Legends  and  Traditions 
of  the  South  of  Ireland.  By  T.  C.  Croker.  Lon- 
don, 1875. 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  The  Life  and  Letters  of.  By  Augustus 
J.  C.  Hare.     Boston  and  New  York,  1895. 

Griffin,  Gerald,  Life  of.  By  Daniel  Griffin,  M.D. 
*London,  1843. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  833 

Lever,  Charles,  The  Life  of.  By  W.  J.  Fitzpatrick. 
London, 1879. 

Lover,  Samuel,  The  Life  of.  By  William  Bayle  Ber- 
nard.    London,  1874. 

Maginn,  William,  Memoir  of  prefixed  to  Miscellanies : 
Prose  and  Verse.  Ed.  R.  W.  Montagu.  London, 
1885. 

Morgan,  Lady;  her  Career,  Literary  and  Personal.  By 
W.  J.  Fitzpatrick.     London,  1860. 


Barringtox,  Sir  Jonah.  Personal  Sketches.  *London, 
1827.     Historic  Memoirs  of  Ireland.     London,  1835. 

Daunt,  W.  J.  O'Xeil.  Eighty-Five  Years  of  Irish  His- 
tory.    *London,  1888. 

Davis,  Thomas.  Essays  hy  Davis.  Ed.  by  C.  P.  Meehan, 
C.C.     *Dublin,  no  date. 

De  Vere,  Aubrey,  Thomas.  Recollections  of  Aubrey  De 
Vere.     New  York,  1897. 

Duffy,  Sir  Charles  Gavan.  Young  Ireland;  a  frag- 
ment of  Irish  History.     London,  1896. 

.     My  Life  in  Two  Hemispheres.     *London,  1898. 

Froude,  J.  A.  The  English  in  Ireland  in  the  Eighteenth 
Century.     New  York,  1875. 

King,  David  Bennett.  The  Irish  Question.  New  York, 
1882. 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.  Leaders  of  Public  Opinion  in  Ireland. 
London,  1871. 

.      History  of  England   in   the   Eighteenth    Century. 

London,  1883. 

McCarthy,  Justin  H.  Outline  of  Irish  History.  *Lon- 
don,  no  date. 

[Walsh,  John  Edward.]  Sketches  of  Ireland  Sixty 
Years  Ago.     *Dublin  and  London,  1819. 


334 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


Yeats,  William  Butler.  The  Celtic  Twilight.  New 
York  and  London,  1894. 

.  Representative  Irish  Tales.  Compiled,  with  an  In- 
troduction and  notes,  by  W.  B.  Yeats.  New  York, 
and  London,  no  date. 


INDEX 


Absentee,  The,  41-44,  277. 
Art  Maguire,  170,  313. 
Aylmers  of  Bally-Aylmer,  153, 
155-156,  303. 

Bagenal,  Beauchamp,  4-6. 

Bally  orvil,  148. 

Banim,  John,  life,  121-125; 
novels  and  tales,  126-139: 
literary  estimate,  299-303. 

Banim,  ^lichael,  life,  125;  nov- 
els and  tales,  140-148;  lit- 
erarj^  estimate,  299-303. 

Banshees,  108-109. 

Barber  of  Bantry,  The,  159, 
161-164. 

Barney  Mahoney,  110-111. 

Barrington,  Sir  Jonah,  13,  14, 
15, 18. 

Battle  of  the  Factions,  The, 
208,  235,  302. 

Berkeley,  Grantley,  16. 

Black  Prophet,  The,  191-196, 
202  seq.,  312. 

Bob  Burke's  Duel  icith  Ensign 
Brady,  99,  298. 

Boyne  Water,  The,  126-129, 
300-302. 

Captain  Blake,  82-85,  223,  232- 

234,  246,  284. 
Card-Drawing,  153  seq.,  303. 


Carleton,  William,  life,  165-170 ; 
novels  and  tales,  170-196 ;  lit- 
erary estimate,  311-323. 

Castle  Rackrent,  29-39, 275-277. 

Chalkers,  11. 

Changelings,  105-106. 

Charles  O'Malley,  60,  61,  65, 
68-72,  85  seq.,  223,  285-289, 
293. 

Cluricaunes,  106  seq. 

Coiner,  The,  208,  257,  303. 

Colleen  Baion,  The,  307. 

Collegians,  The,  152,  159,  164- 
165,  230,  236;  criticism  of, 
304-310. 

Conformists,  The,  1^4-137,  299. 

Crohoore  of  the  Bill-Hook,  126, 
140-141,  299-300. 

Croker,  .John  Wilson,  51. 

Croker,  Thomas  Crofton,  life, 
101-102;  stories,  102-110 ;  lit- 
erary estimate,  294-295. 

Croker,  Mrs.  T.  C,  110. 

Croppy,  The,  141-148,  299,  302. 

Damon  and  Pythias,  123. 
Dark  Lady  of  Doona,  58-59, 

283. 
Daunt,  W.J.  O'N.,  3. 
Davis,  Thomas,  100,  314. 
Disraeli,  16. 
Dissenters,  256-260. 


335 


INDEX 


Drinking,  16-19. 

Dublin    University  Magazine, 

61. 
Duelling,  13-16,  235-239. 
Duffy,  Sir  C.  G.,  112,  304. 
Duke  of  Monmouth,  The,  311. 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  life,  26-29; 

Irish  novels,  29-46;  literary 

estimate,  273-278. 
Elections,  89-90. 
Emigrants  of  Ahadarra,  The, 

202    seq.,  218,    227,  239-241, 

312. 
Ennui,  3^-41,  197-198,  277. 
Established  Church,  The  clergy 

of,  253-256. 

Fairies,  100-110. 

Fairy  Legends  and  Traditions, 

102-110,  111,  295. 
Famine  of  1817, 191-196. 
Fardarougha    the  Miser,  170, 

202  seq. 
Father  Connell,  299-300. 
Father  Tom  and  the  Pope,  99- 

100,  298-299. 
Ferguson,     Sir     Samuel,    99- 

100. 
Fights,  10-11,  23. 
Fir  Darrigs,  106  seq. 
Fitzgerald,  Lord  Edward,  55. 
Fitzpatrick,  W.  J.,  19. 
Florence  Macarthy,  51-52. 

Gentry,  Catholic,  8-9. 
Gentry,  Protestant,  2-7. 
Gisippus,  307. 
Going  to  Maynooth,  171. 
Grattan,  T.  C,  18,  55-56. 
Griffin,   Gerald,   life,    148-153; 

tales    and    novels,    153-165; 

literary  estimate,  303-311. 


Half  Sir,  T/ie,  159-161. 

Hall,  S.  C,  16. 

Hall,  Mrs.  S.  C,  116-117;  tales 

and  novels,  116-119;  literary 

estimate,  278. 
Hand  and  the  Word,  The,  153 

seq. 
Handy  Andy,  111,  114-116,  297. 
Harry  Lorrequer,  60,  61,  65-67, 

85,  244,  245. 
Hawkabites,  11. 
Hector  0' Halloran,  235. 
Hedge  School,  The,  171-176. 
Heiress  of  Desmond,  see    St. 

Clair. 
Hell-Fire  Club,  11,  20. 
Heroes,  213-218. 
Heroines,  199-208. 
Highways  and  Byways,  18. 
Holland  Tide,  152. 
Howard,  John,  16. 

Invasion,  The,  150,  311. 

Jack    Hinton,    61,    65,   72-74, 

77-79,  222,  246-247,  285-289. 
Jane  Sinclair,  256-257,  313. 
John  Doe,  138-139. 

Knight  of  Gwynne,  77ie,  94^96, 
215,  219,  285,  290-291. 

Last  Baron   of   Crana,   The, 

130-134,  299. 
Lawlessness,  228-243. 
Laws,  penal,  7-8;    effects  of, 

8-9,  22-24, 131-132,  134-137. 
Legends  and  Stories  of  Ireland, 

111,112-113,296. 
Legends  of  the  Lakes,  102. 
Leprecaunes,  106  seq. 
Lever,     Charles    James,    life, 

50-65;  Lorrequer,  O'Malley, 


INDEX 


337 


and  Hiuton,  65-90;  the  nov- I 
els  that  followed  Hiuton,  j 
90-97;  literary  estimate, 'J84- 

Lights  and  Shadoics  of  Irish 

Life,  116-117. 
Limerick  Dutchmen,  157. 
Londonderry,  Military  Life  in, 

68-70. 
Lough  Derg  Pilgrim,  The,  170. 
Lover,   Samuel,  life,    111-112; 

novels    and    tales,    112-116; 

literary  estimate,  296-297. 

Maginn,  William,  16;  life,  98; 

tales,  99;   literary  estimate, 

298-299. 
Martins  of  Cro'  Martin,  The, 

92,  96-97,  290-291. 
Maturin,  C.  R.,  55,  56-57;  lit- 
erary estimate,  281-282. 
Maxwell,  William    Hamilton, 

life,    57-58;     novels,    58-59, 

81-85 ;  literary  estimate,  282- 

284. 
Maijor  of  Wind  Gap,  299. 
Melmoth  the  Wanderer,  285. 
Memoirs  of  Morgan  Odoherty, 

99. 
Methodism,  57. 
Middlemen,  179-183. 
Morgan,     Lady,     life,    46-48; 

Irish    novels,    48-55,    74^77; 

literary  estimate,  278-281. 
Morgan,  Sir  T.  C,  47. 

New   Reformation,    The,    179, 

259-266. 
Novelists    of    the    gentry,   25, 

26-119. 
Novelists  of  the  peasantry,  26, 

120-196. 
Nowlans,  The,  137-138,  300. 


O'Briens  and  O'Flahertys,  r>2r- 

55,  244. 
O'Counell,  Daniel,  14. 
O'Donne//,  50-51,266. 
O'Donoghue,  The,  92-M,  290- 

291. 
O'Hara,  or  1798,  58-59,  283. 
Orangemen,  142-144,  183-187. 
Ormond,  44-46,  215,  245,  277. 
Owenson,  Sydney,  see  Morgan. 

Paddy  Go-Easy,  170,  313. 
Palatines,  15&-159. 
Peasantry,  21-24. 
Peep  o'  Day,  The,  or  John  Doe, 

13^139. 
Peter  of  the  Castle,  299. 
Phookas,  109. 
Pinkindindies,  11-12,  20. 
Poor  Scholar,  The,  176-179. 
Priest  and  the  Garde-du-Corps, 

55-56. 
Priests    in    the    novels,    243- 

253. 

Rapparees,  133. 

Rebellion  of  '98,  see  O'Briens 

and  0' Flaherty  s,  113, 141-148. 
Ribbonism,  187-191. 
Rivals,  The,   149,  303. 
Body  the  Rover,  170,  187-191, 

313. 
Roland  Cashel,  290. 
Rory     O'More,    113-114,    246, 

296-297. 
Rourke,  Father,  147. 
Rowan,  W.  H.,  55. 

St.   Clair,  or  the    Heiress   of 

Desmo7id,  48-49. 
Shanavests,  138-139. 
Shajie  Fadh's  Wedding,  250. 
Sir  Jasper  Careio,  200,  215. 


INDEX 


Sketches  of  Irish    Character, 

116-117. 
Societies,  secret,  22-23, 118-119, 

140-141,  138-139,  187-191. 
Soggarth  Aroon,  252. 
Squanders  of  Castle  Squander, 

The,  241-242,  313. 
Squire  Western,  30. 
Squireen,  Tlie,  226-227. 
Stage  Irisliman,  The,  224-226. 
Station,  The,  250,  251. 
Stories    of   Irish    Peasantry, 

116-117. 
Story  Without  a  Tail,  The,  99. 
Sweaters,  11. 
Swift,    Jonathan,    account    of 

Quilca,  87. 

Tales  of  the  Munster  Festivals, 
152  seq. 

Tales  of  the  O'Hara  Family, 
124-148. 

Tandy,  Napper,  55. 

Thackeray,  William  Make- 
peace, 62,  98. 

Tithe  Proctor,  The,  227,  312. 

Tom  Burke,  290  seq. 

Tone,  Theobald  Wolfe.  55. 


Traits  and  Stories,  170    seq., 

312. 
Treasure  Trove,  116. 
Trinity  College,  Dublin,  53-54, 

70-72. 
Tubber  Derg,  231-232. 

Valentine  M'Clutchy,  170,  17^ 

187,  252,  258,  262-265,  312. 
Villains,  215-218. 
Vinegar  Hill,  148. 

Walker,  The  Rev.  George,  129. 

Werter,  48. 

West,  The,  79-86. 

Whiskey,  Illicit  distillation  and 

sale  of,  2.38-243. 
Whiteboy,  The,  117-119. 
Whiteboys,  118-119,  140-141. 
Wild  Irish  Girl,  The,  48-50. 
Wild  Sports  of  the  West,  81-82, 

24iJ-243,  245,  267-269,  281^284. 
Woman,  or  Pour  et  Contre,  57, 

282. 

Yeomanry,    Orange,    142-144, 

184-186. 
Young  Irelanders,  63-64. 


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